"Could we do without it?" asked Floss. Nurse shook her head.
"What could we do without?" continued the child. "We couldn't do without bread or milk, I suppose. What could we do without that costs money?"
"Most things do that," said nurse, who began to have a glimmering of what Floss was driving at, "but the money's well spent in good food to make you strong and well."
"Then isn't there anything we could do without – without it hurting us, I mean?" said Floss, in a tone of disappointment.
"Oh yes," said nurse, "I daresay there is. Once a little boy and girl I knew went without sugar in their tea for a month, and their grandmother gave them sixpence each instead."
"Sixpence!" exclaimed Floss, her eyes gleaming.
"Sixpence each," corrected nurse.
"Two sixpences, that would be a shilling. Carrots, do you hear?"
Carrots had been listening with might and main, but was rather puzzled.
"Would two sixpennies pay for two hoops?" he whispered to Floss, pulling her pinafore till she bent her head down to listen.
"Of course they would. At least I'm almost sure. I'll ask nurse. Nurse, dear," she went on in a louder voice, "do you think we might do that way – Carrots and I – about sugar, I mean?"
"I don't see that it would do you any harm," said nurse. "You must ask your mamma."
But Floss hesitated.
"I shouldn't much like to ask mamma," she said, and Carrots, who was listening so intently that he had forgotten all about his bread and milk, noticed that Floss's face grew red. "I shouldn't much like to ask mamma, because, nursie, dear, it is only that we want to get money for something for ourselves, and if we told mamma, it would be like asking her to give us the money. It wouldn't be any harm for us not to eat any sugar in our tea for a month, and you could keep the sugar in a packet all together, nurse, and then you might tell mamma that we had saved it, and she would give us a shilling for it. It would be quite worth a shilling, wouldn't it, nurse?"
"Oh, yes," said nurse, "I am sure your mamma would say it was." Then she considered a little. She was one of those truly trustworthy nurses whose notions are strong on the point of everything being told to "mamma." But she perfectly understood Floss's hesitation, and though she might not have been able to put her feeling into words, she felt that it might do the child harm to thwart her delicate instinct.
"Well, nurse?" said Floss, at last.
"Well, Miss Flossie, I don't think for once I shall be doing wrong in letting you have a secret. When will you begin? This is Thursday; on Saturday your mamma will give me the week's sugar – suppose you begin on Sunday? But does Master Carrots quite understand?"
"Oh, yes," said Floss, confidently, "he understands, don't you dear?"
"Oh, yes," said Carrots, "we won't eat not any sugar, Floss and me, for a great long time, and nurse will tie it up in a parcel with a string round, and mamma will buy it and give us a great lot of pennies, and then, and then" – he began to jump about with delight – "Floss and me will go to the toy-shop and buy our hoops, won't we Floss? Oh I wish it was time to go now, don't you Floss?"
"Yes, dear, a month's a good while to wait," said Floss sympathisingly. "May we go out on the shore again by ourselves this afternoon, nurse?"
"If it doesn't rain," said nurse; and Floss, who had half an hour to wait before it was time for her to join her sisters in the school-room, went to the window to have a look at the weather. She had not stood there for more than a minute when Carrots climbed up on to a chair beside her.
"It's going to rain, Floss," he said, "there are the little curly clouds in the sky that Matthew says come when it rains."
Floss looked up at the sky and down at the sea.
"The sea looks cross to-day," she said.
There were no pretty ripples this morning; the water looked dull and leaden.
"Floss," said Carrots, with a sigh, "I do get so tired when you are at lessons all the morning and I have nucken to do. Can't you think of a plan for me to have something to do?" Carrots' head was running on "plans."
Floss considered.
"Would you like to tidy my drawer for me?" she said. "This isn't the regular day for tidying it, but it is in a mess, because I turned all the things upside down when I was looking for our race horses' reins yesterday. Will you put it quite tidy, Carrots?"
"Oh, yes, quite, dear Floss," said Carrots, "I'll put all the dolls neat, and all the pieces, and all the sewing things. Oh, dear Floss, what nice plans you make."
So when Floss had gone to her lessons, and nurse was busy with her morning duties, in and out of the room, so as not to lose sight of Carrots, but still too busy to amuse him, he, with great delight, set to work at the drawer. It certainly was much in need of "tidying," and after trying several ways, Carrots found that the best plan was to take everything out, and then put the different things back again in order. It took him a good while, and his face got rather red with stooping down to the floor to pick up all the things he had deposited there, for the drawer itself was too heavy for him to lift out bodily, if, indeed, such an idea had occurred to him. It was the middle drawer of the cupboard, the top part of which was divided into shelves where the nursery cups and saucers and those sort of things stood. The drawer above Floss's was nurse's, where she kept her work, and a few books, and a little note-paper and so on; and the drawer at the bottom, so that he could easily reach it, was Carrots' own.
One end of Floss's drawer was given up to her dolls. She still had a good many, for though she did not care for them now as much as she used, she never could be persuaded to throw any of them away. But they were not very pretty; even Carrots could see that, and Carrots, to tell the truth, was very fond of dolls.
"If I had some money," he said to himself, "I would buy Floss such a most beautiful doll. I wish I had some money."
For the moment he forgot about the hoops and the "plan" and sat down on a little stool with one of the unhappiest looking of the dolls in his arms.
"I wish I could buy you a new face, poor dolly," he said. "I wish I had some money."
He got up again to put poor dolly back into her corner. As he was smoothing down the paper which lined the drawer, he felt something hard close to dolly's foot; he pushed away the dolls to see – there, almost hidden by a crumple in the paper lay a tiny little piece of money – a little shining piece, about the size of a sixpence, only a different colour.
"A yellow sixpenny, oh, how nice!" thought Carrots, as he seized it. "I wonder if Floss knowed it was there. It would just do to buy a new doll. I wish I could go to the toy-shop to buy one to surprise Floss. I won't tell Floss I've found it. I'll keep it for a secret, and some day I'll buy Floss a new doll. I'm sure Floss doesn't know – I think the fairies must have put it there."
He wrapped the piece of money up carefully in a bit of paper, and after considering where he could best hide it, so that Floss should not know till it was time to surprise her, he fixed on a beautiful place – he hid it under one of the little round saucers in his paint-box – a very old paint-box it was, which had descended from Jack, first to Mott and then to Carrots, but which, all the same, Carrots considered one of his greatest treasures.
When nurse came into the room, she found the tidying of the drawer completed, and Carrots sitting quietly by the window. He did not tell her about the money he had found, it never entered into his little head that he should speak of it. He had got into the way of not telling all the little things that happened to him to any one but Floss, for he was naturally a very quiet child, and nurse was getting too old to care about all the tiny interests of her children as she once had done. Besides, he had determined to keep it a secret, even from Floss, till he could buy a new doll with it – but very likely he would have told her of it after all, had not something else put it out of his head.
The something else was that that afternoon nurse took Floss and him a long walk, and a walk they were very fond of.
It