"I'll try, Aunt Charlotte," said Florrie, colouring Mrs Warren's gentleness always subdued her, and when the summons came she followed her aunt, and made a sort of imitation of Mrs Warren's country curtsey at the drawing-room door, as a proof that she meant to mind her manners. Lady Carleton was very young and very pretty. Her manner was lively as she asked a few questions about previous experience, and said that her nurse preferred a girl who had not been out before. "So you have only to attend to her directions. What is your name?" "Her name is Florence Whittaker, my lady," said Mrs Warren. "My husband wished me to name that at once. But she has been brought up very careful, and her brother George is a clerk on the railway and most respectable." Lady Carleton coloured up, and a curious look came into her face. "I should like to do something for Florence _Whittaker_," she said with a slight emphasis. "We will consider it settled, Mrs Warren, that your niece comes on trial." "Your ladyship is very good. Florence will do her best, I am sure," said Mrs Warren. Accordingly, in the course of an hour or so Florence found herself in Lady Carleton's nursery, under the orders of a well-mannered superior nurse, making friends with Lily and Malcolm, and admiring the baby. "Things are not so tidy as they should be, Florence," said the nurse, "for our last girl began with the mumps, and was sent off in a hurry. Before you undress Miss Lily, please to straighten out her walking things and put her toys to rights. I couldn't see properly to them yesterday or to-day." Lily Carleton was quite ready to make friends with the new nursemaid, and Florence, who was good-natured with children, had soon told her the names of her little sisters, and was hearing in return about the wood and the squirrels, and the pretty puff-balls, and all the delights of a London child in the country. "What's this, Miss Lily?" said Florence, putting her hand into the pocket of the little jacket which she was folding. "Have you been putting a puff-ball in your pocket?" "No," said Lily, "that's a letter from the fairies. I found it in the wood; I told mother that I'd found a fairy letter, but she was too busy to look and see." Florence straightened out the crushed ball of damp paper, which, in company with bits of moss and lichen-covered stick, filled Lily's little pocket. "Why, Miss Lily," she began, "this ain't a fairy letter," when she suddenly stopped, catching sight of her own name in the short, clearly written note: "Whittaker." "Whittaker has come with me. Remember I am still your brother.--Alwyn Cunningham."