"I will go up to them, Anne, and you may stay down and lay the cloth for tea--I expect your master in early to-night." She put her writing materials hastily away, and with a light, quick step ran upstairs. She entered a room which in its size and general shabbiness might better have been called an attic, and found herself in the presence of three small children. The two elder ran to meet her with outstretched arms and glad cries. The baby sat up in his cot and gazed hard at his mother with flushed cheeks and round eyes. She took the baby in her arms and sat down in a low rocking-chair close to the fire. Harold and Daisy went on their little knees in front of her. Now that mother had come their quarrel was quite over, and the poor baby ceased to fret. Seated thus, with her little children about her there was no doubt at all that Charlotte Home had a pleasant face; the care vanished from her eyes as she looked into the innocent eyes of her babies, and as she nursed the seven-months-old infant she began crooning a sweet old song in a true, delicious voice, to which the other two listened with delight:---- "In the days when we went gipsying, A long time ago." "What's gipsying, mother?" asked Harold, aged six. "Something like picnicking, darling. People who live in the country, or who are rich,"--here Mrs. Home sighed--"often, in the bright summer weather, take their dinner or their tea, and they go out into the woods or the green fields and eat there. I have been to gypsy teas; they are great fun. We lit a fire and boiled the kettle over it, and made the tea; it was just the same tea as we had at home, but somehow it tasted much better out-of-doors." "Was that some time ago, mother?" asked little Daisy. "It would seem a long, long time to you, darling; but it was not so many years ago." "Mother," asked Harold, "why aren't we rich, or why don't we live in the country?" A dark cloud, caused by some deeper emotion than the mere fact of being poor, passed over the mother's face. "We cannot live in the country," she said, "because your father has a curacy in this part of London. Your father is a brave man, and he must not desert his post." "Then why aren't we rich?" persisted the boy. "Because--because--I cannot answer you that, Harold; and now I must run downstairs again. Father is coming in earlier than usual to-night, and you and Daisy may come down for a little bit after tea--that is, if you promise to be very good children now, and not to quarrel. See, baby has dropped asleep; who will sit by him and keep him from waking until Anne comes back?" "I, mother," said Harold, and, "I, mother," said Daisy. "That is best," said the gentle-voiced mother; "you both shall keep him very quiet and safe; Harold shall sit on this side of his little cot and Daisy at the other."