understood.

The next day Jane had had a month's notice given her, not because she
gossiped in the nursery, or was rude to Esther--Esther never told tales
about the servants--but because Mr. Carroll said briefly that they must
manage with fewer servants and cut down all expenses. For that same
reason the children's pony was taken away and sold a few days later,
and from that time it seemed to Esther it had been nothing but cutting
down and giving up and doing with less and less. It was only a few
months after the pony was sold that Poppy was born, and soon after that
they left their old home and went to live in a little house where they had
no library and no nursery, and no stables or horses, and the children had
to play in the dining-room; and Esther's chief recollection of this time
was her constant struggle to prevent Penelope and Angela and the new baby
from crying or making too much noise, for she knew by the frown on her
father's face that he was worried and bothered by it, and she could not
bear to see him looking gloomy, or to hear the children scolded.

Having no nursery they had no nurse--no real nurse; they had a
'cook-general' and a 'nurse-housemaid' as the advertisements put it, and,
in common with most persons who profess to be able to 'turn their hands to
anything,' they could do few things, and nothing well. So it fell to
Esther and her mother to take care of the babies, and as Mrs. Carroll had
not yet learnt to take care of herself even, a very heavy burden rested on
little serious-faced Esther.

It was better when the summer came, though, for then the family made
another move. True it was to a yet smaller house, and more things had to
be given up; but the smaller house was in a little village called Framley,
and the little village had woods lying behind it, and here was nursery
large enough for any number of children to laugh in or cry to their
hearts' content, without disturbing any one; and Esther's heart was
relieved of one big worry, and the children soon learnt to laugh a again,
and play, and make as much noise as their hearts desired.

Summer, though, cannot last for ever, and woods do not make an ideal
nursery in winter. The perplexed frown was beginning to pucker Esther's
brow again when once more they were called on to relinquish something.
The nurse-housemaid had to be sent away, and they had to learn how to
manage with one servant; and it was just about that time that she heard
her