to happen; and through her kindness there was a
sort of sadness which made me like her all the better. I knew she kept
thinking about poor mother--about its being her last day in England--in
the same country as her poor little boys and girl, and so did I. _All_
the day it was never out of my head for one inch of a minute, though I
didn't say so, not to make the boys think of it like that. For in their
funny way they seemed already to fancy papa and mother _quite_ away,
almost as if they were in China, and I didn't want to unsettle that
feeling, as it would only have made it worse for them again.

Pierson unpacked our toys, and after all, Tom did cheer up a little when
he saw his soldiers and his fort, which had been best toys at home, but
which mamma told Pierson were to be every-day ones in London, both to
please Tom and because there had been such a great throwing away of old
ones, not worth packing, that really we should have had none to play
with if our best ones had been kept _for_ best. Mother had had such a
good thought about our toys--almost as soon as it was really fixed about
papa and her going away, she had begun packing up the good ones, so that
when we got them out in London they seemed quite new, for it was nearly
two months since we had had them, and it was quite a pleasure to see
them again, though a little sadness too. Every one that came out of the
box, there was something to say about it.

"My best paint-box that mother gave me last Christmas," Tom would say,
or "My dear little pony horse with the little riding man, that Muzzie
made a jacket for," Racey cried out. While as for me, every doll that
appeared--dolls of course were my principal toys, and I had quite a lot
of them--reminded me of some kind thought that perhaps I had not noticed
enough at the time. Racey was perfectly silly about his horses--he loved
them so that he almost provoked Tom and me--and we looked at each other
as much as to say, "He doesn't understand." He really was, I suppose,
too little to keep the thought of our trouble long in his mind, even
though he had cried so dreadfully the day before, and I think the sight
of his forgetting, as it were, made me all the sadder.

But when the toys were all arranged in their places, and the long day
was over at last, even Racey grew dull, and unlike himself. It had been
a very long day--we had not been out of our own rooms at all, except
just for those few minutes in the morning, to see