'"Oh lady," it said, "Dot is all alone. Doll is 'done to 'Ebben," and the great tears gathered in Dot's mournful eyes and rolled down Dot's rosy cheeks. '"Hush, hush, my dear. You mustn't cry. You'll make yourself ill if you cry any more," said the hard looking nurse. 'A moment before, I had intended turning to her and asking for some particulars of the baby's sad words, but now I felt I _could_ not. She was so stiff and unsympathising. I could not bear her to see me, a stranger, crying about what I had heard. Besides, what good would it do? Why should I hear any more? I shrank from doing so. The bare fact was enough. I just bent down and kissed the solitary darling. '"Good-bye, my trot," I said. I could not say another word. '"Dood bye, don't ky," said Dot, stroking my cheek. "Doll won't turn back, but Dot will do to 'Ebben too some day." 'That was quite too much for me. I turned away and hurried back home as fast as I could. '"Mamma," I exclaimed, rushing into our sitting-room, and throwing myself down on the sofa, "It's just what I thought. I wish you would come away from St. Austin's at once. I shall never, never like it again." '"What _is_ the matter, Florence?" said poor mamma, quite startled. '"It's about the trots," I said, now fairly sobbing, "I have just seen one--in deep mourning, mamma,--and--and--the other one is _dead_." '"Poor little angel!" said mamma. And the tears came into her eyes too. 'I did not see Dot again after that day. I fancy that was its last walk before leaving St. Austin's for its regular home, wherever that was. And a very short time after we ourselves left too. * * * * * 'I never forgot the trots. Of course the pleasure of going back to our own dear home again, and seeing all our old friends, raised my spirits, and softened the real grief I had felt. But whenever we spoke of St. Austin's, or people asked me about it, and mentioned the esplanade or the shore, or any of the places where I had seen the trots, the tears _would_ come into my eyes, as again I seemed to see before me the two dear funny little figures. And whenever our plans for the following winter were alluded to, I always said one thing: "Wherever you go, mamma, don't go to St. Austin's." 'My mother gave in to me. When did she not? How patient she was with me, how sympathising, even in my fancies! And how unselfish--it was not till long after we had left St. Austin's, that she told me what anxiety she had gone through on hearing of my having kissed little Dot. For how sadly probable it seemed that Doll had died of some infectious illness, such as scarlet-fever, for instance, which I had never had! '"But _Dot_ couldn't have been ill, mamma," I said. "Dot looked perfectly well." '"Did he?" said my mother. Sometimes she called the trots "he" and sometimes "she," in the funniest way! "I wonder what the other little dear died of?"