e
couldn't be moved for some time yet, and when she did go it must be to
somewhere mild. He spoke of somewhere abroad first, but then he thought
it would be getting too hot at the warm places, and as far as the others
were concerned, there were just as good in England. So in a sort of a
way it came to be settled that when Hebe did go, it should be to the
Isle of Wight.

That didn't fix anything about the rest of us, however. And there were a
good many things to think of.

I knew all about them. You see mums has always told me everything. She
knows she can trust me. It's with it being so that I have anything to
write. I'm behind the scenes. I don't see how children who are just told
things straight off like, 'You're going to the seaside on Tuesday,' or
'Nurse is leaving to be married, and you're not going to have a regular
nurse any more now you're so big'-- I don't see how they could have
anything interesting to write. It's the way things work out that I think
makes life interesting, and children don't often look at things that
way. But I couldn't have helped it, for I knew all about how things
happened, and how mother planned and thought them over, and when she was
happy and when she was anxious. It was all like pictures moving
along--one leading into another.

Just now mother was anxious. I've said already that we're not rich--not
as rich as we look. That's to say it's not father's and mother's money,
but gran's. Of course you might say that's the same thing--father being
an only child and gran so proud of him being so clever and
distinguished, though not in ways that make much money. But it isn't the
same, however kind gran is.

And just now it was specially not the same. For, of course, long before
this, gran had had to be told about the sad loss of the diamond
ornament, and it wasn't in nature for him to be _pleased_ about it, now
was it?

He'd very likely have been still more vexed if it hadn't been for the
whooping-cough coming so soon upon the top of it. He didn't know that
the one had brought the other, both thanks to Anne. Father and mother
thought there was no need to tell him that part of it, for he was always
ready to be down upon Anne. Her careless, thoughtless ways were just
what worried him particularly.

But he was kind and loving in his own way. He never wrote another word
of reproach about the diamond thing after he heard of the trouble we
were in. He was very glad I didn't get the illness. I