"Well, you know best," said her husband. A sad telling it was, and the way in which the children took it touched auntie's loving heart to the quick. They were so quiet and "pitiful," as little Sybil said. Floss's face grew white, for, with a child's hasty rush at conclusions, she fancied at first that auntie was paving the way for the worst news of all. "Is mamma _dead_?" she whispered, and auntie's "Oh no, no, darling. Not so bad as that," seemed to give her a sort of crumb of hope, even before she had heard all. And Carrots stood beside auntie's knee, clasping his little mother Floss's hand tight, and looking up in auntie's face with those wonderful eyes of his, which auntie had said truly one _could_ not deceive; and when he had been told all there was to tell, he just said softly, "Oh _poor_ mamma! Auntie, she kissened us so _many_ times!" And then, which auntie was on the whole glad of, the three children sat down on the rug together and cried; Sybil, in her sympathy, as heartily as the others, while she kept kissing and petting them, and calling them by every endearing name she could think of. "When will there be another letter, auntie?" said Floss. "The day after to-morrow," said auntie. "Your father will write by every mail." In her own heart auntie had not much hope. From what Captain Desart said, the anxiety was not likely to last long. The illness had taken a different form from Mrs. Desart's other attacks. "She must be better or worse in a day or two," he wrote, and auntie's heart sorely misgave her as to which it would be. The sorrowful day seemed very long to the children. They did their lessons as usual, for auntie told them it would be much better to do so. "Would it please mamma?" said Carrots; and when auntie said "Yes, she was quite sure it would," he got his books at once, and "tried" even harder than usual. But after lessons they had no heart to play, and there was no "must" about that. By bed-time they all looked worn out with crying and the sort of strange excitement there is about great sorrows--above all to children--which is more exhausting than almost anything. "This will never do," thought auntie. "Hugh" (that was the name of Sybil's father) "will have reason to think I should have taken his advice, and not told them, if they go on like this." "Sybil," she said, "Floss and Carrots will make themselves ill before the next letter comes. What can we do for them?" Sybil shook her head despondently. "I don't know, mother dear," she said; "I've got out all my best things to please them, but it's no good." She stood still for a minute, then her face lightened up. "Mother," she said, "'aposing you were to read aloud some of those stories you're going to get bounded up into a book some day? They would like _that_."