"Who have gone to Florida?" asked Harry, trying to appear indifferent. "Whom do you suppose I mean? Mrs. Highwood, and Trixy, and Fenie. That child is the apple of their eye. Still, I'm inclined to think that Fenie herself wanted to get away for a while. I'm sure if I'd been in her place I'd have wanted to, had I known that certain other people knew certain things." "What people? What things?" "Oh, don't be silly." "Well, my dear, I've been thinking of going South myself--oh, no; not to Florida. Our firm have a little business at Norfolk that requires personal attention, and they want me to attend to it. Don't you want to go with me? Old Point Comfort is within an hour's sail of Norfolk, and our friends, the Braymans, went down there yesterday, to remain a week, and there's a big fort there, full of officers, who are said to work harder and enjoy their leisure better than any other men in the United States." "We go," said Kate, and go they did, the very next day. Meanwhile, in entire ignorance of what some of their acquaintances were doing, Trif and Fenie found some small shopping necessary; the nearest shopping centre to Old Point was Norfolk. So one morning to Norfolk they went, taking Trixy with them. Grown people's shopping is very tiresome business to little people, so Trixy became so uncomfortable that she begged to be allowed to rest by standing upon the sidewalk and looking at the passers-by, and Trif permitted it, stipulating that the child should not go further from the store than the street at either side. The child soon found herself having a delightful time, and storing her mental picture book with unfamiliar scenes, when suddenly she shouted, "Hooray!" Then she dashed across the street, and with one hand pulled the frock of Kate Trewman, while with the other she grasped Harry's sleeve. "Trixy Highwood! Did you drop down from the sky?" "I s'pose I did," said Trixy, after a moment of thought, "but that was seven years ago. To-day, though, I dropped over here from Old Point Comfort." "But how do you come to be roaming the streets of Norfolk?" asked Kate. "I ain't roamin'. I can't go off of this block, 'cause mamma and Aunt Fee are in the store there, buyin' things." "But we thought you'd gone to Florida?" "Oh, we're goin' there one of these days, I s'pose, 'cause that's where we started for; but mamma says it's hard to get away from Old Point, because she keeps findin' old friends there." "Does Fenie find any?" discreetly asked Kate. "She doesn't need to," was the reply, "for she keeps findin' new ones all the time. Say, army officers is real nice; don't you think so?"