"Are we going to auntie's?" said Carrots. His asking this seemed to please his mother. "You would like to go to auntie's, wouldn't you, Carrots?" she said. Carrots stroked his mother's shawl up and down two or three times before he answered. "I'd like to go if you would come too," he said at last, "but I think I would rather stay at home, thank you, if you can't come." Mrs. Desart's eyes filled with tears. "Poor little Carrots!" she said, softly smoothing his curls with her hand. "But if it would please me for Floss and you to go without me?" she said. "I'll go if you want me to go, mamma," said Carrots. "I must explain a little," said Mrs. Desart, and then she went on to tell the children how it was. The doctor had said she must not risk another winter at Sandyshore, and it had been arranged for her to go to a warmer climate. Cecil and Louise were to go with her; Captain Desart would be with them as much as he possibly could, and Maurice was to live at school. And what concerned the two little ones almost more than anything, _nurse_ was to go too! "I must have some one kind and sensible with me, in case, in case--" and again Mrs. Desart hesitated. "In case you were very tired with travelling, or if you were to get a bad cold again; somebody who could make nice white wine whey and things like that," said Floss, who was of a practical turn of mind, "oh yes, mamma, I quite understand." "Though nurse is getting old, she has been so much accustomed to travelling, too," said Mrs. Desart, "and we are going a long way--to Algeria; Floss, do you know where that is?" "Over the sea!" said Floss, "I wish we might come too, mamma, Carrots and I," she exclaimed. "You will be _so_ far away." "But you will be with auntie, and you know how kind auntie is," said her mother, forcing herself to speak cheerfully. "And it is such a pretty place where auntie lives." "Is the sea there?" said Carrots. "No, but the hills are," answered Mrs. Desart with a smile. "I am quite sure you will like it." And she went on to tell them so much about auntie's pretty home that for a little they almost forgot everything but the pleasant part of the change that was to come so soon. And it did come very soon. It seemed but a few days from the afternoon they had first heard about it all, when Floss and Carrots found themselves early one morning at the little railway station with their father, waiting for the train. Captain Desart was to travel with them for the first hour, to take them to the "junction" where they were to change and get into a train which would take them straight to Whitefriars, near which was auntie's house. You will laugh, children, I dare say, and think Floss and Carrots very countrified and ignorant when I tell you that they had never been a long railway journey before. Never, that is to say, that they could _remember_--for their parents had come to Sandyshore when Floss was a baby, and Carrots, as you know, had been born there.