But she didn't whisper (these children never did anything they were told): she said, quite loud, "Of course not! Everybody knows what Dotty wants!"

And little Dolly shrugged her shoulders, and said, with a pretty pettishness, "Now, Father, you're not to tease! You know I don't want to be bride's-maid to anybody!"

"And Dolly's to be the fourth," was her father's idiotic reply.

Here Number Three put in her oar. "Oh, it is settled, Mother dear, really and truly! Mary told us all about it. It's to be next Tuesday four weeks--and three of her cousins are coming; to be bride's-maids--and--"

"She doesn't forget it, Minnie!" the Mother laughingly replied. "I do wish they'd get it settled! I don't like long engagements."

And Minnie wound up the conversation--if so chaotic a series of remarks deserves the name--with "Only think! We pa.s.sed the Cedars this morning, just exactly as Mary Davenant was standing at the gate, wishing good-bye to Mister---I forget his name. Of course we looked the other way."

By this time I was so hopelessly confused that I gave up listening, and followed the dinner down into the kitchen.

But to you, O hypercritical reader, resolute to believe no item of this weird adventure, what need to tell how the mutton was placed on the spit, and slowly unroasted--how the potatoes were wrapped in their skins, and handed over to the gardener to be buried--how, when the mutton had at length attained to rawness, the fire, which had gradually changed from red-heat to a mere blaze, died down so suddenly that the cook had only just time to catch its last flicker on the end of a match--or how the maid, having taken the mutton off the spit, carried it (backwards, of course) out of the house, to meet the butcher, who was coming (also backwards) down the road?

The longer I thought over this strange adventure, the more hopelessly tangled the mystery became: and it was a real relief to meet Arthur in the road, and get him to go with me up to the Hall, to learn what news the telegraph had brought. I told him, as we went, what had happened at the Station, but as to my further adventures I thought it best, for the present, to say nothing.

The Earl was sitting alone when we entered. "I am glad you are come in to keep me company," he said. "Muriel is gone to bed--the excitement of that terrible scene was too much for her--and Eric has gone to the hotel to pack his things, to start for London by the early train."

"Then the telegram has come?" I said.

"Did you not hear? Oh, I had forgotten: it came in after you left the Station. Yes, it's all right: Eric has got his commission; and, now that he has arranged matters with Muriel, he has business in town that must be seen to at once."

"What arrangement do you mean?" I asked with a sinking heart, as the thought of Arthur's crushed hopes came to my mind. "Do you mean that they are engaged?"

"They have been engaged--in a sense--for two years," the old man gently replied: "that is, he has had my promise to consent to it, so soon as he could secure a permanent and settled line in life. I could never be happy with my child married to a man without an object to live for--without even an object to die for!"

"I hope they will be happy," a strange voice said. The speaker was evidently in the room, but I had not heard the door open, and I looked round in some astonishment. The Earl seemed to share my surprise. "Who spoke?" he exclaimed.

"It was I," said Arthur, looking at us with a worn, haggard face, and eyes from which the light of life seemed suddenly to have faded. "And let me wish you joy also, dear friend," he added, looking sadly at the Earl, and speaking in the same hollow tones that had startled us so much.

"Thank you," the old man said, simply and heartily.

A silence followed: then I rose, feeling sure that Arthur would wish to be alone, and bade our gentle host 'Good night': Arthur took his hand, but said nothing: nor did he speak again, as we went home till we were in the house and had lit our bed-room candles. Then he said more to himself than to me, "The heart knoweth its own bitterness. I never understood those words till now."

The next few days pa.s.sed wearily enough. I felt no inclination to call by myself at the Hall; still less to propose that Arthur should go with me: it seemed better to wait till Time--that gentle healer of our bitterest sorrows should have helped him to recover from the first shock of the disappointment that had blighted his life.

Business however soon demanded my presence in town; and I had to announce to Arthur that I must leave him for a while. "But I hope to run down again in a month," I added. "I would stay now, if I could. I don't think it's good for you to be alone."

"No, I ca'n't face solitude, here, for long," said Arthur. "But don't think about me. I have made up my mind to accept a post in India, that has been offered me. Out there, I suppose I shall find something to live for; I ca'n't see anything at present. 'This life of mine I guard, as G.o.d's high gift, from scathe and wrong, Not greatly care to lose!'"

"Yes," I said: "your name-sake bore as heavy a blow, and lived through it."

"A far heavier one than mine," said Arthur. "The woman he loved proved false. There is no such cloud as that on my memory of--of--" He left the name unuttered, and went on hurriedly. "But you will return, will you not?"

"Yes, I shall come back for a short time."

"Do," said Arthur: "and you shall write and tell me of our friends. I'll send you my address when I'm settled down."

CHAPTER 24. THE FROGS' BIRTHDAY-TREAT.

And so it came to pa.s.s that, just a week after the day when my Fairy-friends first appeared as Children, I found myself taking a farewell-stroll through the wood, in the hope of meeting them once more.

I had but to stretch myself on the smooth turf, and the 'eerie' feeling was on me in a moment.

"Put oor ear welly low down," said Bruno, "and I'll tell oo a secret!

It's the Frogs' Birthday-Treat--and we've lost the Baby!"

"What Baby?" I said, quite bewildered by this complicated piece of news.

"The Queen's Baby, a course!" said Bruno. "t.i.tania's Baby. And we's welly sorry. Sylvie, she's--oh so sorry!"

"How sorry is she?" I asked, mischievously.

"Three-quarters of a yard," Bruno replied with perfect solemnity. "And I'm a little sorry too," he added, shutting his eyes so as not to see that he was smiling.

"And what are you doing about the Baby?"

"Well, the soldiers are all looking for it--up and down everywhere."

"The soldiers?" I exclaimed.

"Yes, a course!" said Bruno. "When there's no fighting to be done, the soldiers doos any little odd jobs, oo know."

I was amused at the idea of its being a 'little odd job' to find the Royal Baby. "But how did you come to lose it?" I asked.

"We put it in a flower," Sylvie, who had just joined us, explained with her eyes full of tears. "Only we ca'n't remember which!"

"She says us put it in a flower," Bruno interrupted, "'cause she doosn't want I to get punished. But it were really me what put it there. Sylvie were picking Dindledums."

{Image...The queen's baby}

"You shouldn't say 'us put it in a flower'," Sylvie very gravely remarked.

"Well, hus, then," said Bruno. "I never can remember those horrid H's!"

"Let me help you to look for it," I said. So Sylvie and I made a 'voyage of discovery' among all the flowers; but there was no Baby to be seen.

"What's become of Bruno?" I said, when we had completed our tour.

"He's down in the ditch there," said Sylvie, "amusing a young Frog."

I went down on my hands and knees to look for him, for I felt very curious to know how young Frogs ought to be amused. After a minute's search, I found him sitting at the edge of the ditch, by the side of the little Frog, and looking rather disconsolate.

"How are you getting on, Bruno?" I said, nodding to him as he looked up.