to go, granny? Soon, I suppose? Am I to keep house?" Audrey's face was very bright as she turned it to her grandmother. "Oh! but I shall have to leave school, shan't I, granny?" Her face fell at that thought, and her granny said to herself, with a little pang of pain, "She is more sorry to leave school than she is to leave me."

"Of course you will have to leave your school," she said tartly. "You could hardly come sixty miles in the morning, and home again at night. You might as well live here for all the company you would be to your mother. Think before you speak, Audrey; it would save you from saying many foolish things."

"Then shan't I go to school?"

"I don't know what arrangements your father will make; he doesn't go into every detail in this letter. Perhaps he will get a governess for you all; perhaps you will have to teach the younger ones."

"Oh!" Audrey did not care for that prospect. She was not fond of children, they made a house untidy and noisy, and required so much attention. All the same, though, it was very nice to be going home as mistress of the house, and companion to her mother. Perhaps her mother would help her with her story-writing. It would be grand if she could write stories and sell them, and earn enough money to buy her own clothes. Granny Carlyle did not approve of her writing, or reading either. Indeed, there was scarcely a book in the house.

Audrey recovered her spirits as she remembered the books and papers at home; they seemed to overflow and spread all over the house.

"I shall have my own bookcase, and keep my own books in it, away from the children," she thought to herself. "I hope I have a bedroom to myself. Oh, I must!" But the little doubt she could not get rid of sobered her again. She thought of her pretty bedroom upstairs, how lovely the comfort and peace of it had seemed to her after the bare ugly room at home, which she had shared with Faith.

"Granny, do you think I shall have a room to myself at home?" she asked anxiously. "I shall hate sharing one with Faith!"

"I daresay Faith will not relish sharing one with you," remarked granny, severely, "if she has to."

"But she is so untidy, and after having had such a nice one all to myself, I shall miss it dreadfully."

"I wonder if you will miss me," exclaimed Granny sharply, and for the first time Audrey thought of her grandmother, and her feelings.

"Why, of course I shall, granny, and everything here. I expect I shall often wish I was back again." But it was not until the last day came, and she sat at breakfast for the last time in the handsome, comfortable dining-room, that she fully realised the pain of parting.

She was looking across to the sun-bathed park, at the children already at play there, and the 'grownups' sitting on the seats gazing at the view, or reading their papers, when the thought came to her that to-morrow, and the next day, and all the days that followed, they would be there, but she would not see them. She would be miles away from that dear peaceful spot, with only a rough country road to look out on, and the desolate-looking moor in the distance. And with the same the shrill whistle of a departing train cut the air, and the melancholy of it, and of the day, and of all that was to happen, poured over Audrey, until the pain seemed almost more than she could bear.

"Oh, granny, I don't want to go away," she cried. "I don't want to go. I can't bear leaving you, and—and everything. I want to stay with you always."

Oddly enough, at the sight of Audrey's sorrow, some of the sadness which had weighed on her granny's heart for days was lifted from it, and, though it was their last day, she felt happier. "Then the child does care, she does feel leaving me, she has some deep affections! I knew she had," thought the lonely old grandmother with a sense of triumph over the doubts which had troubled her. She put out her hand and patted Audrey's. "I am so—" she almost, in her relief, said "I am so glad!" "I would like you to stay, dear, but I feel it is your duty to go, and mine to spare you."

"May I come back, granny, when the year is up?" pleaded Audrey, keeping back her tears by remembering that her eyes would be red for her journey. "It would be lovely to think that this day twelve-months I shall be seeing it all again."

"If your father and mother can spare you, and you still wish to come, I shall be very glad to have you, and your room will be waiting for you."

That was comforting, but the thought of leaving that pretty, beloved room for a whole year set the tears flowing again. "Oh, I mustn't cry, I mustn't," she said to herself fiercely. "Everybody at the station will see, and everyone in the train, too." But, as her eyes wandered from one to another of the familiar things, the pretty cups and saucers, the silver coffeepot, the funny old tall cosy that granny used, and all the rest of them, the sense of loss and parting again became too much for her, and this time the tears flowed without thought of appearances.

"I think I love things more than people," she said to herself, as she stood in her bedroom putting on her hat and coat; and she stooped and kissed the two old foreign shells on the mantelpiece with a sudden feeling of sympathy. They must have travelled so far from their home, and would never, never go back. She leaned out of the window for the last time, and took a long look at the well-filled garden, and at the flat country beyond, and the river shining in the sunlight.

The sight of the river and the hills brought her some comfort. They had been there so long, and would be there unchanged whenever she came back. "And I am coming! I am coming! I will come!" she cried passionately.

A knock sounded at her door. "Mistress wants to know if you are ready, miss," said Phipps, granny's maid, who had been with her for five-and-twenty years. "The sandwiches and milk are ready for you in the dining-room, Miss Audrey. The train leaves in half an hour."

"I will be down in a minute," said Audrey, in a choked voice. She hoped desperately that Phipps would go away and leave her alone to say her last good-bye to her room. But Phipps showed no such intention.

"I'll fasten up the bag, and bring it down, miss," and she laid hands on the straps and began to secure them in a manner which gave Audrey no hope. "I'm sorry to be doing up luggage for you to go away altogether, Miss Audrey. We shall all miss you," she said kindly. "The house will seem dreadfully dull and empty. I think you had better come down and have something to eat, or the mistress will be worrying. She likes to be at the station in good time."

Audrey hurried out of her room for the last time, without a backward glance, for her heart was too full to talk.

Once out in the sunshine, though, and walking across the park with her grandmother, some of her unhappiness lightened. It was all so familiar, so exactly as it always was, so calm and unchanged, it seemed impossible that she could be going away from it all for more than a very little while. There were several things, too, that could not fail to cheer her. In her rug-strap were two new umbrellas, one for herself and one for Faith. Her own had a white handle, and Faith's a green one. In her trunk was a new coat for Faith, and a present for each and all from granny, while in the new dark-blue hand-bag that she carried was a dark-blue purse, and in the purse were a half-crown for Faith, and a new shilling each for Debby and Tom.

"To do what they like with," said granny, as she popped in the coins, "but granny hopes that they will like to put them in their money-boxes."

On the platform, when they got there, they found Audrey's neat green trunk and portmanteau, with the rug-strap lying on top, and a porter mounting guard over them. Audrey was very proud of her luggage when she travelled, it looked so neat and nice, all green alike, and all with her initials, 'A. M. C.', in white. Granny had bought it all for her when they went for their first annual