“Think how nice it will be when I come back again,” Mother said presently. “It will be getting summer, and we’ll go for lovely picnics in the woods. And there will be surprises in my box, such surprises for each one of you!” “Mother going away for two, five, six, a million years!” Teddy shouted suddenly. He clapped his hands and laughed as if it were something nice. Well, I couldn’t help it; it seemed more than one could bear. “Be quiet, you hateful, horrid idiot!” I said. “If you are glad Mother is going, every one isn’t.” “Hush, hush, Molly!” Mother said. “Teddy is so little, he doesn’t understand.” She laid her hand on my head. Then no one said anything for a long time. Violet had started off to cry, and Humph was crying too, though he pretended he wasn’t, so he wouldn’t blow his nose, but kept on kind of snorting. It couldn’t have been that his handkerchief was dirty, because it was Sunday. As for me, I was behind Mother’s chair, and no one could see me. Teddy was the only happy one; he’d gone to sleep again. “Oh, children, children!” all at once Mother said. “Don’t make it harder for me. Mother hates to go.” Well, I hadn’t thought about it that way before. There was Mother going all alone, and at least I’d got the Count of Aulon, (he’s my rat), besides the others. “You’ll--you’ll get quite strong there, Mother, won’t you? and be able to run races and--and all sorts of things, when you come back?” My voice was hardly funny at all. But suddenly Mother began to cry; she really did. “My little ones! oh, my ‘preshun cats!’” she whispered. That’s what we like her to call us when we are very cuddly. And for a minute we all sort of cried together. “Why, this will never do; Mother is the biggest baby of you all,” Mother said, and she smiled. “Soon there will be a big pond on the carpet, and you will be really water-babies. Wouldn’t Teddy be surprised to wake up and find himself swimming about the drawing-room. Come, we must put the wee man to bed.” As Mother laughed, of course we all laughed too.