The Boys and I: A Child's Story for Children. Molesworth Mrs.

the words, and though I could not quite see that there was anything queer in my thinking about new ulsters for the boys, I did not tease mother any more about them just then. She kissed me again quite kindly, and then carried Racey away. He just woke up a very little as she lifted him, and gave a sort of cross wriggle – poor little boy, he had been so comfortably asleep. But when he saw that it was mother who was lifting him, he left off being cross in one moment.

      "Dear little muzzie," he said, and though he was too sleepy to open his eyes again, he puckered up his little red lips for a kiss. "Muzzie," was what the boys called mother sometimes for a pet name. It wasn't very pretty, but she didn't mind.

      "My darling little Racey," she said, as she kissed him; and somehow the way she said "darling" made me wish just a little that I was Racey instead of myself. Yet I didn't think about it much. My fancy would go running on about going to uncle Geoff's, and the journey, and how I would take care of the boys and all that; and when I went to sleep I had such queer dreams. I thought uncle Geoff had a face like Pierson when she was cross, and that he wore a great big ulster buttoned all down the back instead of the front, because, he said, that was the fashion in China.

      CHAPTER II.

      REAL AND PLAY

      "And I'll be Lady Fuss-aby,

      And you shall be Miss Brown."

      I woke very early the next morning – for after all it had not been at all late when I fell asleep. I woke very early, but Tom was awake before me, for when I looked across to his bed, even before I had time to say "Tom, are you awake?" very softly, to which if he was still feeling sleepy he sometimes answered, "No, I'm not" – before I had even time to say that, I saw that his bright dark eyes were wide open.

      There was a night-light on the little table between our cots. Mother had let us have it since we were ill. By rights the cot I was sleeping in was Racey's, for I had a little room to myself, but Tom and I had been put together because of the measles. I could not have seen Tom's face except for the light, for it was still quite dark outside, just beginning to get a very little morning.

      "Tom," I said softly, "do you know what o'clock it is?"

      "Yes," said Tom, "I think it's six. Just as I woke I heard the stair clock striking. I only counted four, but in my sleep I'm sure there had been two."

      "Tom," I said again.

      "Well," said Tom.

      "Tom," I repeated. "I wish you could come into my bed or that I could get into yours. I do so want to speak to you, and I don't like to speak loud for fear of Pierson hearing." Pierson slept in a little room next ours.

      "Pierson's asleep," said Tom. "I heard her snoring a minute ago. We mustn't get into each other's beds. Mother said we must promise not, for fear of catching cold."

      "I know, but it's a pity," I said. "Tom, do you know – oh, Tom, do you know?"

      "What?" said Tom.

      "Something so wonderful, I don't know if I should tell you, but mother didn't say I wasn't to. Tom, what should you say if we were to go away – a long way away in the railway?"

      "I'd say it was vrezy nice," said Tom. "If it was all of us together, of course."

      "Ah, but if it wasn't all of us – what would you say then?"

      Tom stared at me.

      "What do you mean, Audrey?" he said. "We always does go all away together, if we go away at all."

      "Oh yes – going to the sea-side and like that. But I mean something quite different from that. Suppose, Tom, that you and me and Racey had to go away somewhere by ourselves, what would you think of that?"

      Tom's dark eyes stared at me more puzzledly than before.

      "Audrey," he said, "what can you mean?" He looked quite startled and frightened. "Audrey," he said, suddenly jumping out of bed, "I must get into your bed. I'm sure I won't catch cold, and I want to whisper to you."

      I could not help making room for him in my cot, and then we put our arms round each other, and Tom said to me in a very low voice – "Audrey, do you mean that Racey and you and me are all going to die?"

      Poor Tom, he looked so pitiful when he said that I was so sorry for him.

      "Oh no, Tom dear. Of course I don't mean that. What could have made you think so?" I said.

      "Because unless it was that I don't see how we could go away alone. Papa and mother would never let us. We're too little."

      "I didn't mean that we'd really go alone in the railway," I explained, "somebody would go with us – Pierson perhaps, if she wasn't married. But still in a way it would be going away alone. Oh Tom, I have felt so funny all night – as if I couldn't believe it."

      Then I told him what I had heard and what mother had told me; and all the time we held each other tight. We felt so strange – the telling it to Tom made it seem more real to me, and poor Tom seemed to feel it was real at once. When I left off speaking at last, he stared at me again with his puzzled-looking eyes, but he didn't seem as if he was going to cry.

      "Audrey," he said at last, starting up, "don't you think if we were all to pray to God for papa and mother not to go away that that would be the best plan?"

      I didn't quite know what to say. I knew it was always a good thing to pray to God, but yet I didn't feel sure that it would stop papa and mother's going away. I was rather puzzled, but I didn't quite like to say so to Tom.

      "Audrey," he said, jigging me a little, "speak, be quick. Wouldn't that be a good plan? Perhaps then a letter would come at breakfast to say they weren't to go – wouldn't they be pleased?"

      "I don't know," I said at last. "I almost think, for some things, papa wants to go, and that it's a good thing for him, and if it's a good thing for him I dare say God wouldn't unsettle it."

      "But if it isn't a good thing for us?" said Tom, "and it can't be a good thing for us– I'm sure God would unsettle it then."

      I could not see it like that either.

      "I shouldn't like to say it that way," I replied. "Don't you see that would be like saying papa would do something that wasn't good for us, and I shouldn't like to say that 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