"Oh, Mrs. Cox," cried Charity, dancing up to her, as she sat at the kitchen table enjoying her cup of tea, "we're going to the country to a house all our own, and no lodgers in the top floors of it, a house with a well, and primroses, and apple trees, and we shall have butter—real butter—every day, and a forest with big trees, and we shall pick up wood in it and light our fires. And Aunt Alice will be home all day!" Mrs. Cox stared at her. "Ah, well, yer h'aunt did say to me times was hard, and you couldn't h'afford to go on livin' here, that and the h'air raids—but never did I think you'd all sink down to the country! 'Tis only where folks live in their dotage, or sick children be sent for their 'olidays; nobody with brains or money be content with such a hom'! Why, me sister Ivy went down to a place there, an' were that skeered she's never prop'ly recovered since. She left before the end o' her month; she said when you looked out of the windys, there were nothin' but trees tapping their branches on the windy panes, and earwigs a crawlin' inter the beds, if you please, and you walks miles and never meets a single human soul, an' the nights black pitch, so's the evenings out were a crool joke! Not to speak of mud comin' up your legs over your boots—!" "Go on—how perfectly lovely!" cried Charity with glowing eyes. But Mrs. Cox shook her head gloomily, and refused to say another word. "Granny lived in the country when she was little, and our Dad was born in the country, and when Grand-dad was alive, he kept a school in the country for little boys, and Granny used to love them, and they loved her. And George Melville had curly hair, and Granny used to keep a bag of chocolates in her room for him, and now he's grown-up, and has a big house, and he's going to let Granny and us live in one of his small houses. We're going to be awfully happy in the country, Aunt Alice says everything is nice there." Mrs. Cox gave an unbelieving sniff. "Once I went on a Mothers' treat. It rained twelve hours on end—and I sat on a damp log o' wood, and was ill in bed of rheumaticks for a month h'after! Give me a proper Lunnon park for beauty. Why, the park flowers beat the country ones holler!" Charity left her. Mrs. Cox would not understand the joy of looking forward to a move into an unknown country. Two hours later, the three little girls were in bed in one room upstairs. Aunt Alice and Granny always slept together. They were talking hard over the prospect in front of them. "I s'pose," said Hope with knitted brow, "that we're very, very poor. It's only since Granny and Aunt Alice were doing up sums together in their account books that they said they couldn't stay here any longer." "No," said Charity; "it was when Faith was so ill the other day. The doctor said Granny must take her to the country, and Granny shook her head. And I heard her say to Aunt Alice after: