glad to sit down, and it felt warm in the hall compared to
outside. There was a door close to where they were. It was one of those
houses that have the dining-room at the back and the library to the
front, you know, and the door was the library door.

[Illustration: 'The door opened a little wider, and two faces
appeared.'--c. v. p. 74.]

After a moment it opened, very slowly and softly, and some one peeped
out; then Anne and Serena heard some whispering, and the door opened a
little wider, and two faces appeared. It was two children--a boy and a
girl, though their heads looked much the same, as they had both short,
dark, curly hair, and they both wore sailor tops. They gradually opened
the door still more till they could be seen quite well. They were about
six or seven, and they stood smiling at the girls, half shy and half
pleased.

'Won't you come in here?' said one of them. 'It must be so cold out
there. We're having tea in here all by ourselves. It's such fun.'

'We're to stay here till mamma comes home,' said the other. 'We've been
by ourselves all day, because Lilly and Tom are ill--we mustn't be in
the nursery to disturb them.'

Anne and Serry walked in. 'They didn't see why they shouldn't,' said
Serry, and these dear little children were so kind and polite. They
handed them the cake and bread-and-butter, and they would have given
them tea, only they hadn't cups enough, and they didn't seem quite sure
about ringing for more.

George, the footman, was rather cross sometimes, they said. But it
wasn't often he was so rude as to leave any one in the cold hall. They'd
tell mamma when she came in.

She did come in very soon. The bell rang, and the children ran to the
door to peep out, and when Lady Nearn hurried in, there she found the
four as happy as could be--Anne and Serry so amused by the children that
they had quite forgotten all about how frightened nurse and all of us
would be getting; indeed, they'd almost forgotten what they had come to
this strange house about at all.

Lady Nearn did look astonished. For half a minute she took Serena for
Flossy Barry.

'Flossy,' she said, 'I wrote to your----' but then she stopped, and just
stared in surprise.

Anne had got back her wits by then, and she explained it all--how it was
partly, anyway, her fault about the brooch being lost, and how pleased
she'd be to find it, and all about what Flossy had told them, and how
she and Serry had come off by themselves