The sorrowful day seemed very long to the children. They did their lessons as usual, for auntie told them it would be much better to do so.

"Would it please mamma?" said Carrots; and when auntie said "Yes, she was quite sure it would," he got his books at once, and "tried" even harder than usual.

But after lessons they had no heart to play, and there was no "must"

about that. By bed-time they all looked worn out with crying and the sort of strange excitement there is about great sorrows--above all to children--which is more exhausting than almost anything.

"This will never do," thought auntie. "Hugh" (that was the name of Sybil's father) "will have reason to think I should have taken his advice, and not told them, if they go on like this."

"Sybil," she said, "Floss and Carrots will make themselves ill before the next letter comes. What can we do for them?"

Sybil shook her head despondently.

"I don't know, mother dear," she said; "I've got out all my best things to please them, but it's no good." She stood still for a minute, then her face lightened up. "Mother," she said, "'aposing you were to read aloud some of those stories you're going to get bounded up into a book some day? They would like _that_."

Floss hardly felt as if she could care to hear _any_ stories, however pretty. But she did not like to disappoint kind auntie by saying so, especially when auntie told her she really wanted to know if she and Carrots liked her stories, as it would help her to judge if other children would care for them when they were "bounded up into a book."

So the next day auntie read them some, and they talked them over and got quite interested in them. Fortunately, she did not read them all that day, for the next day there was still more need of something to distract the children's sorrowful thoughts, as the looked-for letter did not come. Auntie would have liked to cheer the children by reminding them of the old sayings that "No news is good news," and "It is ill news which flies fast," but she dared not, for her own heart was very heavy with anxiety. And she was very glad to see them interested in the rest of the stories for the time.

I cannot tell you these stories, but some day perhaps you may come across the little book which they were made into. But there is one of them which I should like to tell you, as it is not very long, and in the children's mind it was always a.s.sociated with something that happened just as auntie had finished reading it. For it was the last of her little stories, and it was called----

CHAPTER XII.

"THE TWO FUNNY LITTLE TROTS."

"Like to a double cherry."

_Midsummer-Night's Dream._

'"Oh mamma," cried I, from the window by which I was standing, to my mother who was working by the fire, "_do_ come here and look at these two funny little trots."'

[Auntie had only read this first sentence of her story when Sybil interrupted her.

"Mother dear," she said, in her prim little way, "before you begin, do tell us one thing. Does the story end sadly?"

Auntie smiled. "You should have asked me before I _had_ begun, Sybil,"

she said. "But never mind now. I don't really think I can tell you if it ends sadly or not. It would be like telling you the end at the beginning, and it would spoil the interest, if you understand what that means."

"Very well," said Sybil, resignedly, "then I suppose I must wait. But I _won't_ like it if it ends badly, mother, and Floss won't, and Carrots won't. Will you, Floss and Carrots?"

"I don't think Floss and Carrots can say, till they've heard it," said auntie. "Now, Sybil, you mustn't interrupt any more. Where was I? Oh yes"]--'"_do_ come and look at these two funny little trots."

'My mother got up from her seat and came to the window. She could not help smiling when she saw the little couple I pointed out to her.

'"Aren't they a pair of fat darlings?" I said. "I wonder if they live in our terrace?"

'We knew very little of our neighbours, though we were not living in London, for we had only just come to St. Austin's. We had come there to spend the winter, as it was a mild and sheltered place, for I, then a girl of sixteen, had been in delicate health for some time.' ["You wouldn't believe it to see me now, would you?" said auntie, looking up at the children with a smile on her pretty young-looking face, but it was quite true, all the same.] 'I was my mother's only girl,' she went on, turning to her ma.n.u.script again, 'and she was a widow, so you can fancy what a pet I was. My big brothers were already all out in the world, in the navy, or the army, or at college, and my mother and I generally lived by ourselves in a country village much farther north than St. Austin's, and it was quite an event to us to leave our own home for several months and settle ourselves down in lodgings in a strange place.

'It seemed a very strange place to us, for we had not a single friend or acquaintance in it, and at home in our village we knew everybody, and everybody knew us, from the clergyman down to farmer Grinthwait's sheep-dog, and nothing happened without our knowing it. I suppose I was naturally of rather a sociable turn. I knew my mother used sometimes in fun to call me "a little gossip," and I really very much missed the sight of the accustomed friendly faces. We had been two days at St.

Austin's, and I had spent most of those two days at the window, declaring to my mother that I should not feel so "strange" if I got to know some of our neighbours by sight, if nothing more.

'But hitherto I had hardly succeeded even in this. There did not seem to be any "neighbours" in the pa.s.sers-by; they were just pa.s.sers by who never seemed to pa.s.s by again, and without anything particular to distinguish them if they did. For St. Austin's was a busy little place, and our house was on the South Esplanade, the favourite "promenade" for the visitors, none of whom, gentlemen, ladies, or children had particularly attracted me till the morning I first caught sight of my funny little trots.

'I do think they would have attracted any one--any one certainly that loved children. I fancy I see them now, the two dears, coming slowly and solemnly along, each with a hand of their nurse, pulling _well_ back from her, as if the effort to keep up, even with her deliberate rate of walking, was almost too much for their fat little legs. They looked exactly the same size, and were alike in everything, from their dresses--which this first day were brown holland, very easy about the bodies, very short and bunchy about the skirts--to the two white woolly lambs, clasped manfully by each in his or her disengaged hand. Whether they were boys or girls I could not tell in the least, and to this day I do not know.

'"_Aren't_ they darlings, mamma?" I said.

'"They certainly are two funny little trots," she replied with a smile, using my own expression.

'Mamma went back to her knitting, but I stayed by the window, watching my new friends. They pa.s.sed slowly up the Esplanade, my eyes following them till they were out of sight, and then I turned away regretfully.

'"They are sure not to pa.s.s again," I said, "and they are so nice."

'"If they live near here, very likely the Esplanade is their daily walk, and they will be pa.s.sing back again in a few minutes," said my mother, entering into my fancy.

'I took up her suggestion eagerly. She was right: in about a quarter of an hour my trots appeared again, this time from the other direction, and, as good luck would have it, just opposite our window, their nurse happening to meet an acquaintance, they came to a halt!

'"Mamma, mamma," I exclaimed, "here they are again!"

'Mamma nodded her head and smiled without looking up. She was just then counting the rows of her knitting, and was afraid of losing the number.

I pressed my face close to the window--if only the trots would look my way!--I could hardly resist tapping on the pane.

'Suddenly a bright thought struck me. I seized Gip, my little dog, who was asleep on the hearth-rug and held him up to the window.

'"T'ss, Gip; T'ss, cat. At her; at her," I exclaimed.

'Poor Gip had doubtless been having delightful dreams--it was very hard on him to be wakened up so startlingly. He blinked his eyes and tried to see the imaginary cat--no doubt he thought it was his own fault he did not succeed, for he was the most humble-minded and unpresuming of little dogs, and his faith in me was unbounded. He could not see a cat, but he took it for granted that _I_ did; so he set to work barking vigorously.

That was just what I wanted. The trots heard the noise and both turned round; then they let go their nurse's hands and made a little journey round her skirts till they met.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Suddenly a bright thought struck me. I seized Gip, my little dog, who was asleep on the hearthrug, and held him up to the window." _To face page_ 212]

'"Dot," said one, "pretty doggie."

'"Doll," said the other, both speaking at once, you understand, "pretty doggie."

'I don't mean to say that I _heard_ what they said, I only _saw_ it. But afterwards, when I had heard their voices, I felt sure that was what they had said, for they almost always spoke together.

'Then they joined their disengaged hands (the outside hand of each still clasping its woolly lamb), and there they stood, legs well apart, little mouths and eyes wide open, staring with the greatest interest and solemnity at Gip and me. At Gip, of course, far more than at me. Gip was a dog, _I_, was only a girl!--quite a middle-aged person, no doubt, the trots thought me, if they thought about me at all; perhaps they did a little, as I was Gip's owner; for I was sixteen, and they could not have been much more than three.

'But all this time they were so solemn. I wanted to make them laugh.

There was a little table in the window--a bow window, _of course_, as it was at the sea-side, and certain to catch winds from every quarter of the heavens--upon which I mounted Gip, and set to work putting him through his tricks. I made him perform "ready, present, _fire_," with a leap to catch the bit of biscuit off his nose. I made him "beg," "lie dead," like Mother Hubbard's immortal pet, and do everything a well-educated dog could be expected to do. And, oh, how funny it was to watch the trots! Evidently they had never seen anything of the kind before; they stared at first as if they could hardly believe their eyes, and then they smiled, and, _at last_, they laughed. How prettily they laughed--they looked more like two fat cherubs than ever.

'But their laughing attracted their maid's attention. She too turned round, and I was pleased to see that she had a pleasant pretty young face. "I shouldn't have liked those dear trots to have a cross old nurse," I said to myself, and the maid still further raised herself in my good opinion by laughing and smiling too. In a minute or two when she thought "that was enough for to-day," she stooped and whispered to the trots. They immediately lifted their little hands, the right of one, the left of the other--for _nothing_, you see, could have persuaded them to let go of their precious lambs--to their rosy mouths and blew a kiss to me, and I could _see_ them say, "Zank zou, lady; zank zou, doggie."

'You may be sure I kissed my hand to them in return, and off they toddled, each with a hand of "Bessie," as I afterwards heard them call their maid, and hauling back manfully as before, which gave Bessie the look of a very large steam-tug convoying two very little vessels.