Carrots: Just a Little Boy Part 18

"Why of course," said Floss, "it's the sun that makes that place nice and warm."

"_Is_ it?" said Carrots. "Is that place nearer the sun than Sandysh.o.r.e is, Floss?"

"No, not exactly. At least it is in a sort of a way--the sunshine falls straighter on it, but I couldn't explain without a globe and a lot of fuss," said Floss. "Never mind just now, Carrots--perhaps auntie can show you."

"But Floss," persisted Carrots, "I do want to know one thing. Shall we see the sun in heaven?"

"No," said Floss decidedly, "_certainly_ not. It says in the Bible there will be no sun or moon in heaven."

"Then I don't think I shall like it at all," said Carrots, "for there won't be any sea there either. I can't think _how_ it can be a nice place."

"But Carrots, dear," said Floss in some distress, "you mustn't think of heaven that way. It isn't like that. Heaven isn't like a place exactly, mamma says. It is just being _quite_ good."

"Being _quite_ good," repeated Carrots thoughtfully. "I wish I could be quite good, Floss, I wish everybody could, don't you?"

"Yes," said Floss. "But really you must get up, Carrots dear; that will be good for just now. Being good always comes in little bits like that."

"But in heaven, the being good will be all in one great big piece, that's how it will be, isn't it?" said Carrots, as he got out of bed and began hunting for his slippers.

I cannot tell you half the history of that first day at Greenmays, or of many others that followed. They were very happy days, and they were full of so many new pleasures and interests for Carrots and Floss that I should really have to write another book to tell you all about them.

Everybody was kind to the children, and everything that could be thought of to make them feel "at home" was done. And Greenmays was such a pretty place--Carrots could hardly miss his dear old sea, once he had learnt to make friends with the hills. At first he could do nothing but gaze at them in astonishment.

"I didn't think hills were so big, or that they would have so many faces," he said to Floss and Sybil the first morning when they were out in the garden together.

Sybil burst out laughing. "Oh you funny Carrots!" she said; "you're just like a boy in a fairy story--you've got such queer fancies."

"But they're _not_ fancies, Sybil," said Carrots, gravely, turning his great brown eyes on his cousin. "The hills _have_ got lots of different faces: that one up there, the one with the round k.n.o.bby top, has looked _quite_ different several times this morning. First it looked smiley and smooth, and then it got all cross and wrinkly, and _now_ it looks as if it was going to sleep."

Sybil stared up at the hill he was pointing to. "I see what you mean,"

she said; "but it's only the shadows of the clouds."

"That's pretty," said Carrots: "who told you that, Sybil? I never thought of clouds having shadows."

"n.o.body told me," said Sybil; "I finded it out my own self. I find out lots of things," she continued, importantly. "I dare say it's because of my name--papa says my name means I _should_ find out things, like a sort of a fairy, you know."

"Does it?" said Carrots, in a rather awe-struck tone. "I should like that. When you were little, Sybil," he continued, "were you ever frightened of shadows? _I_ was."

"No," said Sybil, "I only thought they were funny. And once papa told me a story of a shadow that ran away from its master. It went across the street, at night, you know, when the lamps were lighted: there were houses opposite, you see, and the shadow went into such a beautiful house, and wouldn't come back again!"

"And what after that?" said both Floss and Carrots in a breath.

"Oh, I can't tell it you all," said Sybil; "you must ask papa."

"Does he often tell you stories?" asked Floss.

"Bits," said Sybil; "he doesn't tell them all through, like mother. But he's very nice about answering things I ask him. He doesn't say 'you couldn't understand,' or 'you'll know when you're older,' that _horrid_ way."

"He must be nice," said Floss, who had secretly been trembling a little at the thought of the strange uncle.

And he did turn out _very_ nice. He was older than Floss had expected; a good deal older than auntie, whom he sometimes spoke to as if she were quite a little girl, in a way which amused the children very much. At first he seemed very quiet and grave, but after a while Floss found out that in his own way he was very fond of fun, and she confided to auntie that she thought he was the funniest person she had ever seen. I don't know if auntie told him this, or if he took it as a compliment, but certainly he could not have been offended, for every day, as they learnt to know him better, the children found him kinder and kinder.

So they were very happy at Greenmays, and no doubt would have gone on being so but for one thing. There came bad news of their mother.

This was how they heard it. Every week at least, for several weeks, Floss or Carrots, and sometimes both, got a letter from their mother or from Cecil and Louise; and at first these letters were so cheerful, that even the little bit of anxiety which the children had hardly known was in their hearts melted away.

"What a _good_ thing mamma went to that nice warm place, isn't it, auntie?" Carrots used to say after the arrival of each letter, and auntie most heartily agreed with the happy little fellow. But at last, just about Christmas-time, when the thin foreign-looking letter, that the children had learnt to know so well, made its appearance one morning on the breakfast-table, it proved to be for auntie--_that_, of course, they did not object, to, had there been one for them too, but there was not!

"Auntie dear, there is no letter for us," said Floss, when auntie came into the room. "Will you please open yours quick, and see if there is one inside it?"

"I don't think there is," said auntie; "it doesn't feel like it."

However, she opened the letter at once. No, there was no enclosure; and Floss, who was watching her face, saw that it grew troubled as she ran her eyes down the page.

"My letter is from your father. I cannot read it properly till after breakfast, for uncle is waiting for me to pour out his coffee. Run off now, dears, and I'll come to the nursery and tell you all about it after breakfast," she said, trying to look and speak just the same as usual.

But Floss saw that she was _trying_; she did not persist, however, but took Carrots by the hand, and went off obediently without speaking, only giving auntie one wistful look as she turned away.

"What's wrong, Florence?" said Sybil's father, as the door closed after the children.

"It is about Lucy," said auntie; "she is much worse; _very_ ill indeed.

She has caught cold somehow, and Frank seems almost to have lost hope already."

Two or three tears rolled down auntie's face as she spoke. For a minute or two Sybil's father said nothing.

"How about telling the children?" he asked at last.

"That's just it," replied auntie. "Frank leaves it to me to tell them or not, as I think best. He would not let Cecil or Louise write, as he thought if it had to be told I had better do so as gently as I could, by word of mouth. But they _must_ be told--they are such quick children, I believe Floss suspects it already. And if--and if the next news should be _worse_," continued auntie with a little sob, "I would never forgive myself for not having prepared them, and they would be full of self-reproach for having been happy and merry as usual. Floss would say she should have known it by instinct."

"Would they feel it so much?--could they realise it? They are so young,"

said Sybil's father.

Auntie shook her head. "Not too young to feel it terribly," she said.

"It is much better to tell them. I could not hide the sorrow in my face from those two honest pairs of eyes, for one thing."

"Well, you know best," said her husband.

A sad telling it was, and the way in which the children took it touched auntie's loving heart to the quick. They were so quiet and "pitiful," as little Sybil said. Floss's face grew white, for, with a child's hasty rush at conclusions, she fancied at first that auntie was paving the way for the worst news of all.

"Is mamma _dead_?" she whispered, and auntie's "Oh no, no, darling. Not so bad as that," seemed to give her a sort of crumb of hope, even before she had heard all.

And Carrots stood beside auntie's knee, clasping his little mother Floss's hand tight, and looking up in auntie's face with those wonderful eyes of his, which auntie had said truly one _could_ not deceive; and when he had been told all there was to tell, he just said softly, "Oh _poor_ mamma! Auntie, she kissened us so _many_ times!"

And then, which auntie was on the whole glad of, the three children sat down on the rug together and cried; Sybil, in her sympathy, as heartily as the others, while she kept kissing and petting them, and calling them by every endearing name she could think of.

"When will there be another letter, auntie?" said Floss.

"The day after to-morrow," said auntie. "Your father will write by every mail."

In her own heart auntie had not much hope. From what Captain Desart said, the anxiety was not likely to last long. The illness had taken a different form from Mrs. Desart's other attacks. "She must be better or worse in a day or two," he wrote, and auntie's heart sorely misgave her as to which it would be.