And before the children had time to consider what they had best do, and _long_ before the very deliberate Mr. Fletcher had collected his wits sufficiently to decide upon inviting them to come in, Sybil was back again, closely followed by her mother, whom she had dragged out of the drawing-room without any other explanation than her cry of "Floss and Carrots, oh mother, Flossie and Carrots." [Illustration: "It is Flossie and me, Sybil--don't you remember us?" _To face page_ 184.] And when Floss saw auntie running to them, with her kind face all eagerness and anxiety, the shyness and the disappointment and the mortification all seemed suddenly to melt away. She rushed into the hall and threw herself sobbing into auntie's arms. "Oh auntie," she cried, "we are so tired--poor Carrots is I mean, and so hungry, and I thought you had forgotten us, and we're so far away from mamma." Auntie understood all about it in a moment. She hugged Floss tight, and only let go of her for an instant to get hold of Carrots and hug him tight too. And then, when she saw the two tired little white faces, and felt how wet they were, and saw the tears on Floss's cheeks, she sat down on the hall floor, still clasping them tight, and actually cried too. "My two poor dear little babes in the wood," she exclaimed. "What a dreadful mistake! What a cruel auntie you must have thought me!" "I didn't know if you wanted us--I thought perhaps you had forgotten about us coming," whispered Floss. "No wonder," said auntie; "but Flossie, darling, I haven't got any letter to say what day you were coming? That was why we were not at the station. Sybil and I had been making such delightful plans about how we should meet you at the station--do you think your father and mother could have forgotten to write to tell me the day?" "Oh no," said Floss, "I know papa wrote to tell you--he wrote the day before yesterday, for I heard him tell mamma so. And this morning when the post came, just as we were leaving, he wondered a little that there was no letter from you, but he said perhaps you hadn't thought it worth while to write, as you had said any day this week would do for us to come." "Of course I would have written," said auntie; "but what can have become of the letter?" It had evidently gone astray somehow, and that very evening the mystery was explained, for the postman brought it--a very travel-worn letter indeed, with two or three scrawls across it in red ink--"Missent to Whitehurst," "Try Whitefield," etc., etc.