This was how they heard it. Every week at least, for several weeks, Floss or Carrots, and sometimes both, got a letter from their mother or from Cecil and Louise; and at first these letters were so cheerful, that even the little bit of anxiety which the children had hardly known was in their hearts melted away. "What a _good_ thing mamma went to that nice warm place, isn't it, auntie?" Carrots used to say after the arrival of each letter, and auntie most heartily agreed with the happy little fellow. But at last, just about Christmas-time, when the thin foreign-looking letter, that the children had learnt to know so well, made its appearance one morning on the breakfast-table, it proved to be for auntie--_that_, of course, they did not object, to, had there been one for them too, but there was not! "Auntie dear, there is no letter for us," said Floss, when auntie came into the room. "Will you please open yours quick, and see if there is one inside it?" "I don't think there is," said auntie; "it doesn't feel like it." However, she opened the letter at once. No, there was no enclosure; and Floss, who was watching her face, saw that it grew troubled as she ran her eyes down the page. "My letter is from your father. I cannot read it properly till after breakfast, for uncle is waiting for me to pour out his coffee. Run off now, dears, and I'll come to the nursery and tell you all about it after breakfast," she said, trying to look and speak just the same as usual. But Floss saw that she was _trying_; she did not persist, however, but took Carrots by the hand, and went off obediently without speaking, only giving auntie one wistful look as she turned away. "What's wrong, Florence?" said Sybil's father, as the door closed after the children. "It is about Lucy," said auntie; "she is much worse; _very_ ill indeed. She has caught cold somehow, and Frank seems almost to have lost hope already." Two or three tears rolled down auntie's face as she spoke. For a minute or two Sybil's father said nothing. "How about telling the children?" he asked at last. "That's just it," replied auntie. "Frank leaves it to me to tell them or not, as I think best. He would not let Cecil or Louise write, as he thought if it had to be told I had better do so as gently as I could, by word of mouth. But they _must_ be told--they are such quick children, I believe Floss suspects it already. And if--and if the next news should be _worse_," continued auntie with a little sob, "I would never forgive myself for not having prepared them, and they would be full of self-reproach for having been happy and merry as usual. Floss would say she should have known it by instinct." "Would they feel it so much?--could they realise it? They are so young," said Sybil's father. Auntie shook her head. "Not too young to feel it terribly," she said. "It is much better to tell them. I could not hide the sorrow in my face from those two honest pairs of eyes, for one thing."