"You didn't drop it at Mrs. White's, did you? Should we go back and look?" said Floss, standing still, as if ready to run off that moment.
"No, no, my dear. It's not at Mrs. White's. She and I searched all over, and she's as honest a body as could be," replied nurse. "No, there's just the chance of its being in the drawer at home. I feel all in a fever till I get there to look. But don't you say anything about it, Miss Flossie; it's my own fault, and no one must be troubled about it but myself."
"Poor nursie," said Floss, "I'm so sorry. But you're sure to find it in your drawer. Let's go home very fast. Carrots," she called out to the little figure obediently trotting on in front, "Carrots, come and walk with nursie and me now. Nurse isn't vexed."
Carrots turned back, looking up wistfully in nurse's face.
"Poor darlings," said the old woman to herself, "such a shame of me to have spoilt their walk!"
And all the way home, "to make up," she was even kinder than usual.
But her hopes of finding the lost piece of money were disappointed. She searched all through the drawer in vain; there was no half-sovereign to be seen. Suddenly it struck her that Carrots had been busy "tidying" for Floss that morning.
"Master Carrots, my dear," she said, "when you were busy at Miss Floss's drawer to-day, you didn't open mine, did you, and touch anything in it?"
"Oh, no," said Carrots, at once, "I'm quite, quite sure I didn't, nursie."
"You're sure you didn't touch nurse's purse, or a little tiny packet of white paper, in her drawer?" inquired Floss, with an instinct that the circumstantial details might possibly recall some forgotten remembrance to his mind.
"Quite sure," said Carrots, looking straight up in their faces with a thoughtful, but not uncertain expression in his brown eyes.
"Because nurse has lost something out of her drawer, you see, Carrots dear, and she is very sorry about it," continued Floss.
"What has she lost? But I'm sure," repeated Carrots, "I didn't touch nurse's drawer, nor nucken in it. What has nurse lost?"
"A half-sovereign – " began Floss, but nurse interrupted her.
"Don't tease him any more about it," she said; "it's plain he doesn't know, and I wouldn't like the other servants to hear. Just forget about it, Master Carrots, my dear, perhaps nurse will find it some day."
So Carrots, literally obedient, asked no more questions. He only said to himself, with a puzzled look on his face, "A half sovereign! I didn't know nurse had any sovereigns – I thought only Floss had – and I never saw any broken in halfs!"
But as no more was said in his hearing about the matter, it passed from his innocent mind.
Nurse thought it right to tell the children's mother of her loss, and the girls and Maurice heard of it too. They all were very sorry for nurse, for she took her own carelessness rather sorely to heart. But by her wish, nothing was said of it to the two other servants, one of whom had only lately come, though the other had been with them many years.
"I'd rather by far bear the loss," said nurse, "than cause any ill-feeling about it, ma'am."
And her mistress gave in to her. "Though certainly you must not bear the loss, nurse," she said, kindly; "for in all these years you have saved me too many half-sovereigns and whole ones too for me to mind much about the loss of one. And you've asked Carrots, you say; you're sure he knows nothing about it?"
"Quite sure, ma'am," said nurse, unhesitatingly.
And several days went on, and nothing more was said or heard about the half-sovereign. Only all this time the little yellow sixpenny lay safely hidden away in Carrots' paint-box.
In a sense he had forgotten about it. He knew it was safe there, and he had almost fixed in his mind not to tell Floss about it till the day they should be going to the toy-shop to buy their hoops. Once or twice he had been on the point of showing it to her, but had stopped short, thinking how much more delightful it would be to "surprise" her. He had quite left off puzzling his head as to where the little coin had come from; he had found it in Floss's drawer, that was quite enough. If he had any thoughts about its history, they were that either Floss had had "the sixpenny" a long time ago and had forgotten it, or that the fairies had brought it; and on the whole he inclined to the latter explanation, for you see there was something different about this sixpenny to any he had ever seen before.
Very likely "fairies' sixpennies" are always that pretty yellow colour, he thought.
One day, about a week after the loss of the half-sovereign, Maurice happened to come into the nursery just at the little ones' tea-time. It was a half-holiday, and he had been out a long walk with some of his companions, for he still went to school at Sandyshore, and now he had come in tremendously hungry and thirsty.
"I say, nurse," he exclaimed, seating himself unceremoniously at the table, "I'm awfully hungry, and mamma's out, and we shan't have tea for two hours yet. And Carrots, young man, I want your paint-box; mine's all gone to smash, and Cecil won't lend me hers, and I want to paint flags with stars and stripes for my new boat."
"Tars and tipes," repeated Carrots, "what's tars and tipes?"
"What's that to you?" replied Mott, politely. "Bless me, I am so thirsty. Give me your tea, Carrots, and nurse will make you some more. What awful weak stuff! But I'm too thirsty to wait."
He seized Carrots' mug and drank off its contents at one draught. But when he put the mug down he made a very wry face.
"What horrible stuff!" he exclaimed. "Nurse, you've forgotten to put in any sugar."
"No, she hasn't," said Carrots, bluntly.
Nurse smiled, but said nothing, and Floss looked fidgety.
"What do you mean?" said Mott. "Don't you like sugar – eh, young 'un?"
"Yes, I do like it," replied Carrots, but he would say no more.
Floss grew more and more uneasy.
"Oh, Mott," she burst out, "please don't tease Carrots. It's nothing wrong; it's only something we've planned ourselves."
Mott's curiosity was by this time thoroughly aroused.
"A secret, is it?" he exclaimed, pricking up his ears; "you'd best tell it me. I'm a duffer at keeping secrets. Out with it."
Floss looked ready to cry, and Carrots shut his mouth tight, as if determined not to give in. Nurse thought it time to interfere.
"Master Maurice," she said, appealingly, "don't tease the poor little things, there's a good boy. If it is a secret, there's no harm in it, you may be sure."
"Tease!" repeated Mott, virtuously, "I'm not teasing. I only want to know what the mystery is – why shouldn't I? I won't interfere."
Now Mott was just at the age when the spirit of mischief is most apt to get thorough hold of a boy; and once this is the case, who can say where or at what a boy will stop? Every opposition or contradiction only adds fuel to the flames, and not seldom a tiny spark may thus end in a great fire. Nurse knew something of boys in general, and of Mott in particular; and knowing what she did, she decided in her own mind that she had better take the bull by the horns without delay.
"Miss Floss," she said seriously, "and Master Carrots, I think you had better tell your brother your secret. He'll be very kind about it, you'll see, and he won't tell anybody."
"Won't you, Mott?" said Floss, jumping up and down on her chair in her anxiety. "Promise."
"Honour bright," said Mott.
Carrots opened his mouth as if about to speak, but shut it down again.
"What