“Now, my pets, everything is settled. We're going to leave this house, and go and live in the country. Such a ducky dear little white house. I know you'll love it.” A whirling week of packing followed--not just packing clothes, like when you go to the seaside, but packing chairs and tables, covering their tops with sacking and their legs with straw. All sorts of things were packed that you don't pack when you go to the seaside. Crockery, blankets, candlesticks, carpets, bedsteads, saucepans, and even fenders and fire-irons. The house was like a furniture warehouse. I think the children enjoyed it very much. Mother was very busy, but not too busy now to talk to them, and read to them, and even to make a bit of poetry for Phyllis to cheer her up when she fell down with a screwdriver and ran it into her hand. “Aren't you going to pack this, Mother?” Roberta asked, pointing to the beautiful cabinet inlaid with red turtleshell and brass. “We can't take everything,” said Mother. “But we seem to be taking all the ugly things,” said Roberta. “We're taking the useful ones,” said Mother; “we've got to play at being Poor for a bit, my chickabiddy.” When all the ugly useful things had been packed up and taken away in a van by men in green-baize aprons, the two girls and Mother and Aunt Emma slept in the two spare rooms where the furniture was all pretty. All their beds had gone. A bed was made up for Peter on the drawing-room sofa. “I say, this is larks,” he said, wriggling joyously, as Mother tucked him up. “I do like moving! I wish we moved once a month.” Mother laughed. “I don't!” she said. “Good night, Peterkin.” As she turned away Roberta saw her face. She never forgot it. “Oh, Mother,” she whispered all to herself as she got into bed, “how brave you are! How I love you! Fancy being brave enough to laugh when you're feeling like THAT!” Next day boxes were filled, and boxes and more boxes; and then late in the afternoon a cab came to take them to the station. Aunt Emma saw them off. They felt that THEY were seeing HER off, and they were glad of it. “But, oh, those poor little foreign children that she's going to governess!” whispered Phyllis. “I wouldn't be them for anything!” At first they enjoyed looking out of the window, but when it grew dusk they grew sleepier and sleepier, and no one knew how long they had been in the train when they were roused by Mother's shaking them gently and saying:-- “Wake up, dears. We're there.” They woke up, cold and melancholy, and stood shivering on the draughty platform while the baggage was taken out of the train. Then the engine, puffing and blowing, set to work again, and dragged the train away. The children watched the tail-lights of the guard's van disappear into the darkness.