_ unhappy
wivout us; so would Anna." Poppy found matters very difficult of
arrangement, owing to her incapacity to live in two places at the same
time. "I shouldn't like to leave Cousin Charlotte and Anna and Guard and
Ephraim."

"I should stay with Cousin Charlotte," said Esther one day, when the
matter was under discussion. "You see, there would be so many of you, you
wouldn't want me, but Cousin Charlotte would, and we should be next door,
so it would be almost the same."

But all these premature plans were thrown that autumn into confusion by a
letter from Canada. Instead of waiting to be sent for by his prosperous
daughters Mr. Carroll wrote to say he had made up his mind to come.

"Your cousin cannot reconcile herself to the life here," he wrote, "and
says she can never be happy here; and as I am not doing well enough to
warrant me in staying on in spite of her objections, I am thinking of
selling out and coming home with her very soon. For the time, to give me
an opportunity to look about me, I can think of no better plan than to
come near you, my dear cousin, if a small house can be found for us.
I cannot describe to you my longing to see my children again, nor with
what pleasure I am filled at the prospect of coming home, even though I
have to write myself down a failure here."

Then he went on to thank her in most grateful and feeling terms for her
goodness to his children, terms which drew tears from the gentle little
lady's eyes and set her to wondering what she could do really to help this
almost unknown cousin and his children.

When she told the children the news their excitement was great; but when,
a week later, came another letter, asking, if there was a cottage at
Dorsham or close by to be found, that it should be taken for them, if it
would possibly do, their excitement grew intense.

"Oh, if only I had my farm!" cried Angela, and she went out and looked at
the ground, as though expecting the foundations might have already begun
to show.

But no cottage was to be found next door or in Dorsham. There were not
very many all told, and those there were were always full, so that if one
family wanted to change they had to wait until another was in the same
mind, and then just walk in to each other's houses. But up at Four Winds
there was a square, sturdy cottage built expressly, one would think, to
defy those winds that blew over the village. It was the only one, but all
the four girls agre