* CARROTS.”

“Nurse!” she exclaimed, perceiving her at
the end of the passage, whence she had been
watching as anxiously as the children for her
mistress’s return, “nurse, what is the mean-
ing of it all?”

“Indeed, ma'am,” nurse was beginning, but
she was interrupted. “Come in ene wale eyes
said Captain Desart to his wife, opening the
study door; “come in here before you go up-
stairs.”

And Mrs. Desart did as he asked; but Floss
again managed to creep in too, almost hidden
in the folds of her mother’s dress.

“I can’t believe that Carrots is greedy or
cunning or obstinate,” said his mother, when
she had heard all. “I cannot think that he
understood what he was doing when he took
the half-sovereign,”

“But the hiding it,” said Captain Desart,
“the hiding it; and yet to my face persisting
that he had nevér touched nurse’s_half-sov-
ereign. I can’t make the child out.”

“He says he didn’t know nurse had any
sovereigns,” put in Floss,

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