"Cousin Charlotte," or Miss Charlotte Ashe, was a cousin of Mrs. Carroll's mother. In her earlier years she had kept a girls' school in London, but when she found herself growing old she sold it, and retired to a little house in her native village in Devonshire. Schoolmistresses do not, as a rule, grow rich, and Miss Ashe was the last person to save money for herself while there was any one else wanting it; she managed, however, to save enough to keep herself, and Anna, her former cook, in their little house in comfort, and put a trifle by for an emergency. It was to this quiet, modest little home that Mrs. Carroll's thoughts now flew, without the slightest feeling of compunction at invading it, as she meant it to be invaded. Her letter to Miss Ashe was a masterpiece of pathetic pleading. Miss Charlotte read it with tears of pity for the poor mother, reduced from affluence and luxury to poverty and the position of an emigrant's wife torn from her children by stress of circumstance. Then she read it again to Anna, and Anna's eyes filled too; but it was for the children that Anna wept. Both kind hearts agreed, though, that they could not refuse to give the homeless ones a home; and a letter was despatched at once, full of warm hospitality and affection, and almost before it was posted a perfect fury of cleaning, planning, rearranging burst over Moor Cottage, in preparation for the four new inhabitants. "Children," cried Mrs. Carroll delightedly, when the letter arrived, "your dear Cousin Charlotte is quite anxious to have you in her charming little home in Devonshire. I know you will be happy there, she is so sweet and kind. I was always very fond of her, and so will you be, I know; and you must do all you can to help her, and not be too troublesome. She says she can have you at any time, so I think you really had better go as soon as I can get you ready. I shall be able to see to things better, and pay a few farewell visits, when I am quite free. It will be a great relief to know you are comfortably settled." Esther listened in silence. She was terribly sensitive. She was interested, but troubled. Did Cousin Charlotte really want them, she wondered, "or had mother forced them on her?" Penelope knew no qualms; she simply danced with delight at the thought of going to Devonshire, and to live on a moor. "I always wanted to go there," she cried. "I know I shall love it." Angela wept quietly at the thought of leaving Framley, and her mother, and the house and the woods. Poppy stood gazing eagerly from one to the other, prepared to do whatever her sisters did, but puzzled to know which to copy. "Cousin Charlotte will want a big house," she remarked gravely, "if she has all of us to live with her. I wonder if she is glad we are coming--or sorry," she added as an afterthought.