Frances E. Crompton Nurse had seized the opportunity of Helena's running in with Leigh, to "tidy her up a bit," and Freda too had not objected to a little setting to rights, so that both the girls looked quite in order. And Willie and Hugh had also removed all traces of their adventures; only Maggie was still rather rumpled and crumpled, but as she was counted a tom-boy at all times, it did not so much matter.

"What became of you all, this afternoon?" asked Mrs. Frere. "We walked down to the bridge to look for you, as one of the men said he had seen you going that way. And I am sure I heard one of you 'cooeying'—did I not? Yet when I called, no one replied."

The children looked at each other. Mrs. Frere felt surprised.

"What is the mystery?" she said, though with a smile.

"Oh," began Freda, "there wasn't any mystery—we were only——" She stopped, for she felt that Helena's eyes were fixed on her, and Freda was not by nature an untruthful child. It was through her heedlessness and wildness that she often got into what she would have called "scrapes," from which there seemed often no escape but by telling falsehoods, or at least allowing what was not the case to be believed.

She grew red, and Mrs. Frere, feeling that it was not very kind to cross-question a guest, finished her sentence for her.

"Hiding?" she said. "Were you hiding?" though she wondered why Freda should blush and hesitate about so simple a thing.

"Yes," said Helena quickly, replying instead of Freda, "yes, Mamma, we were hiding—under the bridge."

At the moment she only felt glad to be able to say what in words was true.

For hiding they certainly had been. And Mrs. Frere, thoroughly trusting Helena, turned away and thought no more about it, only adding that it must have been rather dirty under the bridge; another time she would advise them to find a cleaner place.

"I suppose it was 'I spy' you were playing at," she said, and she did not notice that no one answered her.

The rest of the afternoon passed quietly enough.

Hugh and Freda were rather unusually quiet, at which their Mother and elder sister rejoiced.

"I do hope," said Sybil, as she drove home with Mrs. Kingley, leaving the younger ones to follow as they had come, "I do hope those Frere children, though they are younger, will have a good influence upon Hugh and the girls, Freda especially. She has been getting wilder and wilder. And Helena is such a lady-like, well-bred little girl."

"I hope so too," said her Mother. "I own I was a little afraid of our children startling the Freres, but they seem to have got on all right."

"Good night, dears," said Mrs. Frere to her three children an hour or so later. "You were happy with your new friends, I hope? I think they seem nice children, and they were very quiet and well-behaved to-day. Leigh, my boy, you look half asleep—are you very tired?"

"My eyes are tired," said Leigh, "and my head, rather."

"Well, off with you to bed, then," she said cheerfully. She would not have felt or spoken so cheerfully if she could have seen into her little daughter's heart.

Nurse too noticed that Leigh looked pale and heavy-eyed.

She said she was afraid he had somehow caught cold. So she gave him something hot to drink after he was in bed, and soon he was fast asleep, breathing peacefully.

"He can't be very bad," thought Helena, "if he sleeps so quietly."

But though she tried not to be anxious about him, she herself could not succeed in going to sleep.

She tossed about, and dozed a little, and then woke up again—wider awake each time, it seemed to her. It was not all anxiety about Leigh; the truth was, her conscience was not at peace; she felt as if she deserved to be anxious about her little brother, for she saw clearly now, how she had been to blame—first, for giving in to the Kingleys in doing what she knew her Mother would not have approved of, and besides, and even worse than that—in concealing the wrong-doing, and telling what was "not quite true" to her trusting Mother.

The tears forced their way into Helena's eyes when she owned this to herself, and at last she felt that she could bear it no longer.

She got softly out of bed without waking Nurse, and made her way to the little room where Willie slept alone.

"Willie," she said at the door, almost in a whisper, but Willie heard her. He, too, for a wonder, was not able to sleep well to-night, and he at once sat straight up in bed.

"Yes, Nelly," he said, in a low, though frightened voice, "what is it? Is Leigh ill?"

"No," Helena replied; "at least, I hope not, though I'm awfully unhappy about him. It's partly that and partly—everything, Willie—all we did this afternoon. And worst of all," and here poor Nelly had hard work to choke down a lump that began to come in her throat, "I didn't tell Mamma the truth, when she asked what we were doing, you remember, Willie."

"Yes," said Willie, "I remember. You said we were hiding, and so we were."

"But it wasn't quite true the way I let her think it," persisted Helena. "Even if the words were true, the thinking wasn't. And it has made me so dreadfully unhappy. I didn't know how to wait till the morning to tell her—I know I shan't go to sleep all night," and she did indeed look very white and miserable.

Willie considered; he had good ideas sometimes, though Helena often called him slow and stupid.

"I know what," he said. "You shall write a letter to Mamma—now, this minute. I've got paper and ink and pens and everything, in my new birthday writing-case, and I've got matches. Since my birthday, Papa said I might have them in my room."

For Willie was a very careful little boy. If there was no likelihood of his "setting the Thames on fire," his Father had said once, "there was even less fear of his setting the house on fire," and though Willie did not quite understand about the "Thames"—how could a river burn?—he saw that Papa meant something nice, so he felt quite pleased.

And the next morning, the first thing Mrs. Frere saw on her toilet-table was a note addressed rather shakily in pencil, to "dear Mamma."

It was only a few lines, but it made her hurry to throw on her dressing-gown and hasten to the nursery.

"How is Leigh?" were her first words to Nurse.

"He's got a little cold in his head, ma'am, but nothing much," was the cheerful reply, and Mamma saw by the child's face that there were no signs of anything worse.

"But, Miss Helena," Nurse went on, "has had a bad night, and her head is aching, so I thought it better to keep her in bed to breakfast."

Poor Nelly! she had not much appetite for breakfast, and the first thing she did when Mamma's dear face appeared at the door was to burst into tears.

But such tears do good, and still more relief was the telling the whole story, ending up with—

"Oh, Mamma, dear Mamma, I couldn't bear to think I had told you what was not quite true. And Willie feels just the same."

For Willie had crept in too, looking very grave, and winking his eyes hard to keep from crying.

It was all put right, of course; there was really no need for their Mother to show them where they had been wrong. They knew it so well. And Leigh did not get ill, after all.

Freda Kingley had had a lesson too, I am glad to say.

That very afternoon she and Hugh walked over to Halling Park, to "find out" if Leigh was all right.

And this gave Mrs. Frere a good opportunity of showing the kind-hearted but thoughtless children the risk they had run of getting themselves and their little friends into real trouble—above all, by concealing their foolish play, and causing Nelly and her little brothers for the first time in their lives to act at all deceitfully.

"You will be afraid to let them play with us any more," said Freda very sadly, "and I'm sure I don't wonder."

"No, dear," said her new friend. "On the contrary, I shall now feel sure that I may trust you and Hugh and Maggie."

Freda grew red with pleasure.

"You may indeed," she said; "I promise you we won't lead them into mischief and—and if ever we do, we'll tell you all about it at once."

Mrs. Frere laughed at this quaint way of putting it.

"I don't think my children will be any the worse for a little more 'running wild' than they have had," she said.

"And we won't be any the worse for having to think a little before we rush off on some fun," said Freda. "I really never did see before how very easy it would be to get into telling regular stories, if you don't take care."

Rupert is only four years old, but he is very fond of grand words. He speaks quite plainly and nicely, Nurse says (excepting the v's and r's), only, of course, he cannot remember always just the shape of the big words; but he uses much grander ones than I do, though I am nearly six.

But he is the nicest little boy in all the world, and we do love each other better than anybody else at all, after Mother and Father.

We made what Rupert calls an "arranglement" about always being friends with each other; that was the night we roasted the chestnuts.

It was one of the most interesting things we had ever done—and then to be allowed to do it alone! You see, this was the way.

It was the dreadfullest day we can remember in all our lives.

Because you know, first of all, Mother was so ill. And then there was a birthday party we were to have gone to.

And Sarah, who is the housemaid, said she didn't see why we couldn't go just the same, and Nurse said very sharply:

"I'm not going to let them go, I can tell you, with things as they are."

And then she said, in another kind of voice:

"Just suppose they had to be sent for to go in to the mistress——"

And then she went away again into Mother's dressing-room.

That was another horrid thing, that nobody seemed to be able to look after us at all; we could have got into all sorts of mischief if we had wanted, but everything was so dreadful that it made us not want.

There were two doctors, who went and came several times, and someone they called Nurse, but she wasn't our Nurse.

And our Nurse could not be in the nursery with us, but kept shutting herself up in Mother's dressing-room, and that made us be getting into everybody's way.

So at last, when evening came, Nurse sent us down to the drawing-room, because somebody had let the nursery fire go almost out, and she told us to stay there and be good, and Father said he would perhaps come and sit with us by-and-by.

But I don't know what we should have done there so long if Sarah had not brought us a plate of chestnuts, and shown us how to roast them.

(We feel sure that Nurse would not have allowed it by ourselves, and would have called it "playing with fire," but Father looked in at us once, and did not stop us at all, but only said we were very good, and Cook and Sarah kept looking in too, and they were very kind, only rather quiet and queer.)

So that was how it was that we came to be allowed to be roasting chestnuts in the drawing-room by ourselves, which does seem a little funny, if you did not know about that dreadful day.

"There's only two left now," Rupert said.

We hadn't eaten all the plateful, of course, because so many of them, when they popped, had popped quite into the fire, and we were not to try to get them out.

We had roasted one each for Sarah, and for Cook, and for Nurse, and for Father, and of course the biggest of all for Mother.

We thought she might enjoy it when she got better. And they were all done, and there were only two left besides what we had eaten and lost.

So we put them together on the bar to roast, and Rupert said:

"One for you, and one for me. Yours is the light one, and mine is the dark one."

And I said:

"Yes, and let us do them as Sarah did with two of them, and try if they will keep together till they are properly done, and then it will be as if we kept good friends and loved each other always."

So that was what Rupert called the "anxietious" part, because, you know, one of them might have flown into the fire before the other was roasted, and we were so excited about it that I believe we should have cried.

But they were the nicest chestnuts of all the plateful, and that was the nicest thing of all that long day that had so many nasty ones in it.

For the dark chestnut and the light one kept together all the time, and split quite quietly and comfortably, and began to have a lovely smell, and then we thought it was fair to rake them off.

"Those chestnuts were welly fond of each other," said Rupert, in his solemnest way, while they were cooling in the fender. "Like you and me, Nella."

"And so we'll promise on our word-of-honours to be friends like them and love each other for always and always," I said.

And we held each other's hands, and when the chestnuts were cooled and peeled, ate them up, and enjoyed them most of all the chestnuts.

But after we had made that play last as long as we could, and it grew later and later, it began to seem miserabler than ever.

And nobody came to take us to bed, although it did feel so dreadfully like bedtime, and nobody brought us any bread-and-milk, and chestnuts do not really make a good supper, even if you have roasted them yourself. And I tried to tell Rupert "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," but he grew cross because I couldn't tell it as well as Mother.

So I said:

"Well, let us lie down here on the rug, and perhaps if we make believe, it will seem like going to bed."

But Rupert said, how could he go to bed without saying his prayers, and he was so tired and cross that I said:

"Well, you say yours, and I'll hear them."

And so Rupert knelt down on the rug, and said his prayers, and I heard them; at least, I mean, we tried; but I couldn't always remember what came next, and then he remembered that he wanted Mother, and burst out crying.

So I did not know what to do any more, and I could only huggle him, as he calls it, and wipe his eyes on my frock, and we sat there and huggled each other.

And I think we fell asleep in the chimney corner after that.

At least, the next thing we remember is being picked up by Father and Nurse, and Nurse carried Rupert upstairs, and Father carried me.

And I said:

"We've tried to be good, Father, but we were obliged to go to sleep on the floor—just there; we really and truly couldn't keep awake any longer."

And Father did not think it naughty, I am sure, for he kissed us both ever so many times at the nursery door, with a great big hug, although he went away without speaking.

And Nurse undressed us as quickly as she could, and as Rupert calls it, "'scused" our baths, for we were so dreadfully sleepy; and I did think once that Nurse seemed to be crying, but I was too tired to notice any more.

And that was the end of the dreadfullest day we have ever known.

It began to be happier quite soon next day, for Granny came, and stayed with us, and had time to love us very much.

We told her about the chestnuts, and she thought it ever so nice.

And she told us something too, two things, and one was very beautiful, and one was very dreadful.

And the beautiful thing was that God had sent us a baby sister on that dreadful evening. But then He saw that He could take better care of her than even Mother and Nurse, and He loved her so much that He sent an angel to fetch her away again.

And though we were sorry not to have the little sister (and that was another reason to make Rupert and me love each other all the more, Granny said), yet she told us how beautiful it was to know that Baby Lucy would never do a naughty thing, or say a naughty word, but always be kept quite safe now.

And the dreadful thing was—but I can only say it in a whisper—that God had almost taken Mother away, to be with Baby Lucy too.

But He looked down at us, and at Father, Granny said, and was sorry for us; and I think the time when He was sorry was when Rupert was crying, and I was trying to hear his prayers, because He must have seen that I could not be like Mother to Rupert, not however much I tried.

And so He was sorry for us, and Mother stayed.