A JOURNEY AND ITS ENDING. ISI

Carrots aidu't know what it meant; but he
never liked to say so, and I dare say it did
not much matter. But /zs letters to Sybil
were quite real. Any one could have under-
stood them. .

Long ago Floss and he had bought their
hoops. They were quite “old friends” now.
They had bought them at the toy-shop, just as
they had planned; and curiously enough, when
their mamma and nurse counted up how much
was owing to them for the sugar, it came to
exactly the price of the hoops.

But I must tell you what happened just about
the time Carrots had his seventh birthday. The
summer was nearly over again, and already the
cold winds, of which there were so many at
Sandyshore, were beginning to be felt. Floss
noticed that her mother very seldom went out
now, and even in the house she generally had

to wrap herself up in a shawl.

“Mamma, I hope the cold weather isn’t go-

ing to make you ill again,” Floss said one
day when she and Carrots came in from a race

on the sands, all hot and rosy with running.