g to have a treat to-day," said Floss. "We're going to have
tea in the dining-room with you, Sybil, and auntie and everybody, and I
think it's time to go in now, because we must change our frocks."

Carrots had never had tea in the dining-room before, and felt a little
overpowered by the honour. He sat very still, and took whatever was
offered to him, as nurse had taught him. Cecil poured out the tea, and
to please the children she put an extra allowance of sugar into their
cups. Carrots tasted his, and was just thinking how very nice it was,
when it flashed across his mind that he should not have had any sugar.
He put down his cup and looked round him in great perplexity. If only he
could ask Floss. But Floss was at the other side of the table, she
seemed to be drinking her tea without any misgiving. Wasn't it naughty?
Could she have forgotten? Carrots grew more and more unhappy; the tears
filled his eyes, and his face got scarlet.

"What's the matter, dear?" said auntie, who was sitting next him, "is
your tea too hot? Has it scalded your poor little mouth?"

She said it in a low voice. She was so kind and "understanding," she
knew Carrots would not have liked everybody round the table to begin
noticing him, and as she looked at him more closely, she saw that the
tears in his eyes were those of distress, not of "scalding."

"No, thank you," said Carrots, looking up in auntie's face in his
perplexity; "it isn't that. My tea is _werry_ good, but it's got sugar
in."

"And you don't like sugar? Poor old man! Never mind, Cecil will give you
another cup. You're not like Sybil in your tastes," said auntie, kindly,
and she turned to ask Cecil for some sugarless tea for her little
brother.

"No, no, auntie. Oh, _please_ don't," whispered Carrots, his trouble
increasing, and pulling hard at his aunt's sleeve as he spoke, "I _do_
like sugar werry much--it isn't that. But mamma said I was never,
_never_ to take nucken that wasn't mine, and sugar won't be mine for two
weeks more, nurse says."

Auntie stared at her little nephew in blank bewilderment. What _did_ he
mean? Even her quick wits were quite at fault.

"What _do_ you mean, my dear little boy?" she said.

Suddenly a new complication struck poor Carrots.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "it's a secret, it's a secret, and I'm telling it,"
and he burst into tears.

It was impossible now to hide his trouble. Everybody began to
cross-question him.

"Cry-baby," muttered Mauric