m tacking the sweepy, lacey thing that had come undone. Mums flew
off.

'Good-night, dears,' she said. 'I haven't even time to kiss you. Father
has gone down, and the carriage has been there ever so long.'

The girls called out 'good-night,' and Hebe and I ran to the top of the
staircase to watch her go down. Then we went straight back to the
nursery, and in a minute or two the three others came in. Maud was
saying something to Anne, and Anne was laughing at her.

'Did you ever hear such a little prig as Maud?' she said. 'She's
actually scolding me because I was looking at mums's jewels.'

'Anne made them all untidy,' said Maud.

'Well, Rowley'll tidy them again. She came back on purpose; she'd only
gone down to put mother's cloak on,' said Anne carelessly.

'Anne,' said I rather sharply. You see I knew her ways, and mums often
leaves me in charge. 'Were you playing with mother's jewels?'

'I was doing no harm,' said Anne; 'I was only looking at the way the
pins fasten in to that big diamond thing. It's quite right, Jack, you
needn't fuss. Rowley's putting them all away.'

So I didn't say any more.

And to-morrow was the Drawing-room day.

Mother looked beautiful, as I said. We watched her start with the two
others, cousin Dorothea and Miss Merthyr. It was rather a cold day; they
took lots of warm cloaks in the carriage. I remember hearing Judy--we
call her Judy now--say,

'You must take plenty of wraps, Mrs. Warwick,'--that's mother. 'My aunt
made me bring a fur cape that I thought I should not wear again this
year; it would never do for you to catch cold.'

Mums does look rather delicate, but she isn't delicate really. She's
never ill. But Judith looked at her so nicely when she said that about
not catching cold, that the cross look went quite out of her face, and I
saw it was only something about her eyebrows. And I began to think she
must be rather nice.

But we didn't see her again. She did not get out of the carriage when
they came back in the afternoon, but went straight home to her own
house. Somebody of hers was ill there. Cousin Dorothea came back with
mother, and three other ladies in trains came too, so there was rather a
good show.

And everybody was laughing and talking, and we'd all had two or three
little teas and several ices, and it was all very jolly when a dreadful
thing happened.

I was standing by mother. I had brought her a cup of tea from the end
drawing-room where Rowley and t