at of papa--not even to God."

Tom lay down on the pillow again and gave a great sigh.

"I don't know what to do then," he said. "I am sure God would find out
some way of making it right, and it's vrezy cross of you not to let me
ask Him, Audrey. I don't believe you care a bit about them going away,
and I know it has begun to break my heart already. When you told me
first it began to thump so dreadfully fast, and then it gave a crack.
I'm sure I felt it crack," and Tom began to cry.

It was dreadful to hear him talk like that. He didn't often cry. He
wasn't a boy that cried for knocks and bumps at all, but just now he was
rather weak with having been ill, and what he said about his heart quite
frightened me. I don't know what I should have done, but just then
Pierson opened the door of her room and began scolding us for talking so
early in the morning. We were so afraid of her finding out that we were
both in one bed, that we lay quite, quite still. Tom proposed to me in a
whisper that we should begin to snore a little, but I whispered back
that it would be no use as she had heard us talking just a minute
before. And after grumbling a little more, Pierson shut the door and
retired into her own room. Then Tom put his arms round me again and
kissed me--his cross humours never lasted long; not like Racey's, who,
though he was generally very good, once he _did_ begin, went on and on
and on till one didn't know what to do with him.

"I'm very sorry for calling you cross, Audrey," he said. "Perhaps we'd
better wait and ask mother about it," and then we both kissed each
other again, and somehow, though we were so very wide awake, all in a
moment we went to sleep again and slept a good long while. For Pierson
told us afterwards that what Tom had heard striking was only four
o'clock after all.

When we woke again it was _real_ morning--quite bright and sunny. And
mother was standing beside the bedside, and little Racey beside her,
looking very smooth and shiny with his clean pinafore and clean face and
freshly brushed hair. Till I looked close at mother's face I could have
fancied that all the strange news I had heard the night before had been
a dream--it did not seem the least possible that it could be true. But
alas! her face told that it was. Her eyes looked as if she had not been
asleep, and though she was smiling it was a sort of sad smiling that
made me feel as if I couldn't help crying.

"Children," she said, "didn'