[CHAPTER III.]

HOME-SICK.

"WELL, Nellie," said Ada, turning round from a drawer she was sorting over, "what we shall do with you away at grandmamma's all this time I cannot imagine."

Nellie looked up from the depths of the trunk before her, and, pushing a pair of stockings hard into its corner, answered by a sigh.

"There," exclaimed Ada, "now I've depressed you. Of course we shall get on all right; and you like to be missed, don't you, Nellie?"

"Oh, I don't know! I wish I were not going."

"What a goose I am," said Ada, coming over and seating herself on the floor by the trunk. "You will be glad when you are once off. I know the feeling of home-sickness when one is packing up."

Nellie brushed away two or three tears, and went on laying-in her clothes, in silence.

"You are tired," said Ada ruefully, "and I have worried you. We shall get on very nicely; and mamma says you really do want a thorough change."