Dreamikins
Date: 2025-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Dreamikins

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Title: Dreamikins

Author: Amy Le Feuvre

Release date: January 7, 2025 [eBook #75057]

Language: English

Original publication: London: The R. T. S. Office, 1918

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DREAMIKINS ***

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

ANNETTE FOUND DREAMIKINS FAST ASLEEP IN A WHEELBARROW

DREAMIKINS

BY

AMY LE FEUVRE

AUTHOR OF

"A LITTLE LISTENER," "JILL'S RED BAG,"
"ROBIN'S HERITAGE," ETC.

FANCY and Truth go hand in hand.
How can a "Grown-up" understand!
A Giant faith in a tiny soul;
And a love of fun make up the whole.

LONDON: THE R.T.S. OFFICE

4 BOUVERIE STREET, E.C.4

MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN

TO

MY LITTLE NIECE AND GODCHILD

VYVIAN

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. THE LITTLE DOOR

II. THE TEA-PARTY

III. DREAMIKINS ARRIVES

IV. THE RETURN VISIT

V. FEEDING THE HUNGRY

VI. THE STRANGERS ARRIVE

VII. FREDA AND DAFFY IN TROUBLE

VIII. A DAY OF NAUGHTINESS

IX. A LITTLE INVALID

X. THE GOVERNESS

XI. A VISIT TO A FARM

XII. THE PRISONER

XIII. A NEW PLAYMATE

XIV. THE FIRE

XV. SEPARATION

DREAMIKINS

CHAPTER I

The Little Door

FREDA and Daffy stood on the edge of a Great Discovery.

Have you ever done it? Then you will know how they felt; how their small hearts were thumping loudly; how to the tips of their toes and fingers they were trembling with that wonderful joyful excitement of the unknown in front of them.

They were just two small girls, very slim, with long legs and short frocks—holland frocks—smocked across their chests, and they wore limp sunburnt straw hats which kept the sun out of their eyes, for it was a very hot day in June.

Freda was the elder of the two; she had red-golden hair, which was plaited in a long pigtail, and a freckled face, blue eyes, and a delicate little mouth and nose, with a very round determined chin. She was always intensely earnest in everything that she did; untiring in schemes that would unite pleasure with usefulness—as, when she locked Purling, the old butler, into his pantry, and left him there for an hour, she told Daffy it would be so good for him to be obliged to sit still and rest, for he had told her how his legs ached going up and down stairs; and when Nurse had asked her how she could take pleasure in being so naughty, she retorted:

"If it rests Purling and pleases me, those are two good things, not naughty, that I've done!"

Daffy was very fair and fragile-looking. She had a way of dancing along on the tips of her toes, and darting here and there like a bright dragon-fly, and seemed to grown-up people as if she tried just to keep out of their reach. She had a little pale face and soft flaxen hair. Her eyes were brown, with heavy fringed lashes. She was rarely unhappy, and treated most things that happened to her in a very calm unruffled way. Freda was hot-tempered, but nothing upset Daffy's sweetness of outlook. She was always ready to follow Freda's lead.

The children had only just come to live in their father's big country house, which had been let for some years, and they could not remember staying in it before, as they were quite tiny children when they had done so. Their home was in London. Their father had been a busy politician, but now had volunteered for the War, and had gone out to Egypt in the Yeomanry. Their mother loved town and was always busy, either entertaining company in her own house or enjoying it elsewhere. The children saw very little of her.

They had all had whooping-cough, and though now quite well, the doctor advised their mother to send them into the country for the summer; and as the Hall was empty, the tenant having gone to the War, Mrs. Harrington sent them there in charge of their old nurse.

Freda and Daffy were delighted with their country home, but a lot of things about it puzzled them.

It was now about three o'clock in the afternoon. They had explored every corner in the big gardens surrounding the house. A short time before, they had wandered along a straight path in a belt of fir-wood, which had led them, after a long walk, up to a brick wall and a closed door. The door had evidently not been opened for years; ivy had grown over it. Of course they immediately wanted to know what was on the other side. The keyhole was filled with rust and dirt. With the help of a small pocket-knife Freda cleared it out, then she applied one of her blue eyes to it and uttered a low cry of ecstasy.

"Oh, Daffy, it's a garden—a lovely one! Oh, such roses! Such flowers!"

"Let me look."

But Daffy had to wait for some minutes before she had her turn at the keyhole.

"I see a white rabbit on the grass," she said. "Oh, Freda, it's an enchanted garden! Does it belong to us?"

"It ought to," said Freda, looking at the door with sadness. "This is our door, Daffy. It has no business to be locked away from us."

"But it's a long way from the house."

"That doesn't matter a bit. The lodge gate is miles away, but it belongs—"

"Shall we climb over the wall?"

Both children looked up at the old wall above them—a wall that was fully ten feet high.

"No; but we can follow the wall along till we come to another door. There must be one for people to get in and out. Come on!"

Through the fir plantation they went, keeping as close to the wall as they could, though there was a mass of briers and undergrowth for some distance along that prevented them touching it. Eventually they squeezed through some wire railings and got out into the open park. Here a grass-grown ditch was the only obstacle between them and the wall.

"What a big garden it must be inside!" sighed Daffy.

And then it was that Freda came upon the Great Discovery, and she gave a little scream as she did so. It was a little green-painted wooden door only about three feet high. It was on the other side of the ditch. In a moment both children were over the ditch trying to turn the handle, and, to their joy and delight, it turned. There was no lock or bolt, and after a little tugging and pushing they got it open.

"It's like the door in 'Alice in Wonderland!'" gasped Freda. "Oh, look, Daffy, look! There's somebody there!"

They were kneeling down now with beating hearts. Both heads were close together, and eyes taking in all that there was to be seen. A garden indeed, with a cool green lawn, and rose-covered arches, and flowers of every colour crowding each other out of the beds. In the distance, a low, grey house with striped green-and-white sun-blinds, and under a shady tree on the lawn a man in a low hammock chair. He was smoking. He had cushions under his head, and his feet were resting on a long stool; but he had an easel in front of him, and he was either painting or drawing.

"Daffy, let's crawl through! We must! We'll go and ask him who he is."

To speak was to act with Freda. She crammed her battered hat down on her head and crawled through the little door, Daffy following her. Then they stood up and advanced along the gravel path.

"This is an adventure!" whispered Daffy.

But Freda, with eager shining eyes, sped along without a word. The man was too engrossed with his occupation to look up, and it was only when Freda spoke that he turned wondering eyes upon them.

"Did you leave the door open on purpose? Did you expect us to find it one day? And will you tell us why it is so little? Is it for the fairies?"

The man had kind eyes; they saw that at once. He was no ogre or gloomy hermit. But he looked ill, and they saw that crutches were by his side.

"Ah," he said, "that's my secret, But I didn't have it made for you."

"Why is the gate locked, the proper gate belonging to us?" asked Freda.

Daffy had quietly glided round to the back of his chair.

"Oh!" she said, in her soft little voice. "What a darling little fairy girl! She's swinging from an apple-tree bough, Freda. Come and see!"

Freda stepped up closer.

"So she is! Who is she?"

"She's my Dreamikins."

"Is she a real little girl, or just a paper one?"

"She's as real as they're made. What a pity she wasn't here to see you crawling through that little door?"

"Did you see us?"

"Yes, but I pretended not to, so that I shouldn't scare you away."

"Oh, we were much too excited to go back, much!"

"Much!" echoed Daffy from behind. "We never do go back when we're finding out things."

"May we sit down and talk to you?" asked Freda; but she dropped down on the grass as she spoke. "We're simply dying to talk to somebody sensible. I s'pose you know we live the other side of your wall."

The man nodded.

"I guess that. Now we'll play the game properly. You must tell me about yourselves and I'll tell you about ourselves. Who will begin?"

"You," cried both the little girls at once.

So he began:

"My name is Fibo. That is what Dreamikins calls me, and if we're going to be friends you can call me so too."

"But you weren't christened Fibo?" said Freda.

"I was christened Augustus Arnold. Do you like that better?"

"Why does she call you Fibo?" inquired Daffy.

She had been dancing up and down lightly on her toes; now she stood still, and regarded the strange man gravely.

"Dreamikins and I have a way of naming our friends as we like; and I was Mephibosheth to her—'lame on both feet,' but we shortened it to Fibo."

Daffy's eyes were full of pity.

"Tell us more," demanded Freda.

He waved his hand behind him.

"There's my house, and it's run by Mr. and Mrs. Daw and their daughter Carrie. And Drab the cat, and Grinder the dog, and Whiskers the white rabbit are my family; and I came here ten years ago."

"But Dreamikins—isn't she your family?" asked Freda.

He shook his head.

"She has a father and mother, and a home at Brighton and another in Scotland, and this is her other home, and the one she likes best. Dreamikins' mother is my sister. Now you know all about me."

"And we'll tell you about ourselves," said Freda eagerly. "We come from London, but we don't like it very well, because Dad is in Egypt, and Mums is doing all kinds of things in London that she never used to do before the War. And we got the whooping-cough, and Mums thinks we are too pale, so we've come down here to run wild, she says; but of course Nurse stops us doing that."

"Did you ever have a nurse?" demanded Daffy suddenly.

"Didn't I! What an old dear she was too!"

"Fancy having a nurse you could call an old dear!"

Freda looked quite shocked.

"Our nurse is the most important person in the whole world. If the King and Queen were to tell her they wanted to see us, she would say:

"'Not to-day, Your Majesty. When I see fit I will let you know.'"

Daffy gave a little chuckle.

"That's Nurse's favourite saying, 'When I see fit!' She's much more proud than kings and queens are."

"Yes," Freda went on; "so, you see, Nurse has brought us down here, and Purling, and Cook, and a few of the others have come too. Mr. Fibo, what is a 'purse-proud rich'?"

"A rich person who is proud of the money in his purse."

Freda nodded.

"Of course! That ridic'lous, disgusting boy who rides the butcher's horse had an argyment with me yesterday. I was sitting on the park wall when he came by, and my legs was—were on the road side, you know. He said we were that. Why, Daffy and me have never been rich in our lives! Why, I've only sevenpence and a farthing in my purse now; and how much have you, Daffy?"

"Fourpence halfpenny," said Daffy promptly; "and a penny belongs to the missionary box—I mean it has to go there."

"Why, Mr. Fibo, he said something about our big house; but it isn't our house at all! Daffy and me live in just a bit of it. The front stairs aren't ours even! Purling says we're not to go near them. We can't slide down the banisters or tobogg on a tea-tray down the stairs. You see, it's like this. Dad and Mums are to have all the big rooms downstairs when they come, and till then they're locked up. The bedrooms along the big passage belong to the housemaids. They say they won't have us messing up their rooms. Old Purling lives in the pantry—that's his part of the house; Mrs. Stilton has all the kitchen part of the house, and her dear little sitting-room, which she keeps us out of. And Daffy and me—we just have our day-nursery and our night-nursery, and the back stairs to go up and down. We're quite poor, you see. Only two rooms to live in, and those really belong to Nurse, she says. We haven't a single bit of room our very own."

"Except the corner," said Daffy, with twinkling eyes, "and the punishment chair."

"Have you ever sat in a chair," questioned Freda, turning her eager little face towards Fibo, "which is so small in the seat and high in the legs that you can't bend your back a tiny inch or you'll fall off?"

Fibo threw back his head and laughed aloud.

"We had one in our nursery when I was a boy. It was an heirloom then. I didn't think one was in existence now."

"Nurse found it in the nursery here. She sucked her lips when she saw it. She always sucks her lips when she's pleased. And we have to sit on it for half an hour when we're punished."

"I see that you are very unhappy children," said Fibo gravely; but his eyes were smiling in spite of his grave face.

Daffy pirouetted on her toes.

"We love it here," she said, "because we can be out of doors all day finding adventures."

"Like you," put in Freda—"you and this garden and the little door."

"Please let us see your pictures," said Daffy, stealing a little nearer to the invalid's chair.

He put down his hand and took up a portfolio from the grass.

"I'll show you what I have. They're going into a book very soon."

"Do you make books?"

"No, only the pictures in them."

They hung over his chair in rapt enjoyment of all he showed them. There were fairies dancing and playing hide-and-seek amongst beautiful flowers, lying asleep under ferns and toadstools, climbing along a rainbow to get the pot of gold at the other end, and tickling children's cheeks with their tiny fingers as they lay asleep in their cots. There were dogs and cats, all going through wonderful adventures; and in nearly every picture there was a reproduction of Dreamikins. Daffy eagerly looked out for her, and when he turned over a sheet which showed her standing bareheaded with hair flying in the wind on the top of a hill, and hands stretched out upwards, Daffy exclaimed:

"I like that. Oh, I wish I had a picture like that! What is she doing?"

Fibo pointed to words printed underneath:

"I don't like earth, I want heaven!"

"Did she really say that?" asked Freda wonderingly.

"Yes, when her mother had punished her for running away."

Fibo smiled at the recollection as he spoke. Then he put the sketch into Daffy's hand.

"You can have it if you want it. This is only a copy. I have the original."

Daffy took the picture with a radiant face, then, with a quick little dart, she bent her head and kissed, as lightly as a butterfly might, the back of Fibo's right hand.

"That is my 'thank you' to the hand that did it!" she said.

Freda's gaze had wandered away from the sketches to the flowers.

"What lovely flowers you have! It looks like an enchanted garden. We have no flowers like these. Does Dreamikins pick them when she comes to stay with you?

"Yes; she knows all their histories, and which of them the fairies love best."

"Ah," said Daffy, with her cooing little laugh, "you believe in fairies! So do Freda and me, since we saw 'Peter Pan' in London, and I used to before when I was quite a baby. Nurse doesn't. She doesn't believe in any of the nice things, only in doses of medicines, and punishment, and bringing us up like 'little ladies' and 'good Christians.' I hate ladies and Freda hates good Christians, so Nurse and we argify about them."

"Oh, but I believe—heart and soul—in good Christians," said Fibo, leaning his head back and looking at Daffy with a kind smile; "what I don't believe in, are bad ones!"

"But I 'spect your good Christians are nicer than Nurse's. Why, I shouldn't wonder if you were one yourself!"

"Will Freda hate me if I am? But I can truthfully say I'm not a good one, only I have a try, and a hard try too, in that direction."

"How did you hurt your legs?" asked Freda quickly, wishing to change the conversation. "We want to know such a lot of things, and if we don't go back soon Nurse will be coming after us."

"Oh, how could she?" chuckled Daffy. "Why, I'm sure that Fibo made a little door like that on purpose to keep out nurses."

"Well now, I'll tell you about it. First about my legs. They were shot in the Boer War—that was before you were born, so, you see, I've had plenty of time to get accustomed to do without them. I came down to live here with my sister after my smash up, and then she got married and went away, and I liked my garden so much that I stayed on here."

"All alone?" said Daffy, with pity in her eyes.

"I wasn't very long alone. My sister soon brought Dreamikins to me, and she spends part of every year now with me. My sister promised me that I should share Dreamikins before she came into this world. She did not like leaving me to get married, but now she doesn't like leaving her husband to come and see me, and that's quite proper, you know. Well now, about the little door. Of course Dreamikins made me make it. She wanted to go out adventure-seeking in your park, and didn't want her nurse to come after her. So we made it nice and small."

"How lovely!" cried Freda. "But isn't it funny that Dreamikins should want to get out of this lovely garden when we want to get into it! When is she coming to see you again? Soon?"

"Not very soon."

"Then will you have us instead of her, and let us come in and out whenever we like?"

"Whenever you like," Fibo said at once.

"I'm afraid we shall have to be going," Freda said uneasily. "It will be tea-time. It always is tea-time when we want to enjoy ourselves."

"Run along, and get Nurse in a good temper, and then tell her where you've been. Everything must be above-board!"

The children said good-bye. Daffy danced backwards down the path, kissing her hand to him, then he called out:

"Pick a flower to take away with you, and give it to Nurse from me."

Freda stooped over a pink rose-bush.

"I'll pick the very biggest, and we'll make Nurse keep it on the table where we can smell it."

Daffy flitted from bed to bed, unable to make a selection. At last she picked a white Madonna lily.

Then they called out their thanks, and crept through the little green door. When they were once outside, they ran as fast as they could back to the house, and as they ran, Freda said:

"We've made a friend, Daffy,—quite a new one,—and we'll have him all the time we're here. I think it's been splendid!"

"Yes," said Daffy breathlessly; "if Nurse lets us keep him. But we can tell her that he's a grown-up, and won't lead us into mischief. And he's a cripple, and I believe Nurse's sister's husband's cousin is a cripple, so she ought to feel sorry."

A maid was ringing the big tea-bell out of the nursery window. They panted up the stairs, and Nurse met them at the nursery door.

"Where have you been all this time? Jane, make them tidy for tea at once. Master Bertie is ready."

She was fat and comfortable looking. In sickness or trouble, Nurse's lap was a perfect haven; but she had old-fashioned ideas of training children, and her training was Spartan-like in its severity.

Freda and Daffy were soon back in the nursery. It was a pleasant-looking room when the sun shone in at the windows. It was large and square, with dark oak-panelled walls and a low ceiling. Three windows looked into the park, and they had a view of the little village beyond clustering round an old square-towered church. Nurse was sitting in her big chair behind the tea-tray. The table was round. Bertie was in his high chair next Nurse. Freda and Daffy slipped into their chairs, then both held out their flowers to Nurse. Their faces were anxious as they did it. So much depended upon how she received their news!

CHAPTER II

The Tea-Party

"A VERY nice gentleman gave us these to give you, Nurse," said Freda.

"He's so ill, poor man!" sighed Daffy. "Just like your relation, Nurse. He made me think of him."

"Have you been worrying Mr. Trimmer?" asked Nurse, taking the rose from Freda's hand and sniffing it thoughtfully.

Mr. Trimmer was the head gardener. The children shook their heads.

"Oh dear no! Mr. Trimmer isn't without legs, and he chases us away from the greenhouses whenever he sees us," said Daffy. "Smell my lily, Nurse. He told us to choose any flower we liked for you."

"Now just speak up straight, and tell me what you've been doing."

Nurse eyed them sternly.

They told their story breathlessly, each interrupting the other in their anxiety to appease Nurse's gathering wrath.

"You mean to tell me you pushed yourselves into a strange garden, and spoke to a strange gentleman without any one's permission? Where do you get your forwardness, I wonder! In my day children would have died rather than behaved so."

Freda and Daffy were silent. Nurse scolded on, and then Daffy looked at her very sweetly:

"A poor, sick soldier, all alone, Nurse! And he has a little niece he loves, and she isn't there to comfort him, and he loves good Christians, and tries to be one himself. We told him you tried to make us into them, and he sent you these flowers, and hopes you'll let us go to see him again. I think you'd like him very much if you saw him, and I know he'd like you. And this is his little niece!"

Daffy held out her precious sketch.

Nurse took it, put on her spectacles, and read the words underneath:

"I don't like earth, I want heaven!"

"You see how good she is," put in Daffy persuasively.

Nurse gave a kind of grunt. Bertie, who had been silently listening to the conversation, now spoke.

"Me see, Nurse; me see the 'lickle girl."

"There, my lambkin, look!"

Nurse held it out to him with softened voice.

"I'll say this much, he's a clever painter. He'll be Captain Arnold, that took the Dower House some years back."

"What's the Dower House? And why has it a gate into our garden?"

"Why, it belongs to your father, of course. His mother lived and died there—your grandmother that was; but as it won't be wanted for a long time yet 'twas let. There was a Miss Arnold; your mother visited her."

"She's married. Oh, Nurse, if Mums knows them, I'm sure we may go and see him."

"Him! Is that the way to speak of a gentleman?"

"Then does the house really belong to father?" questioned Freda. "What does he want two houses for?"

"When Master Bertie grows up, bless his soul! and brings his wife here,—your father being no longer here,—then the Dower House would be ready for your mother to live in!"

"But, Nurse, how interessing!" exclaimed Freda eagerly. "Where would we live—with Bertie or with Mums?"

"You'd go with your mother, of course. This is your brother's house, not yours, if anything happened to your father. But there! Dear knows why I'm talking in such fashion. We'll hope that your father will live to a ripe old age. There's no call to be talking of his death!"

Nurse relapsed into silence. Freda's busy brain worked away.

"Why should Bertie live here and not us?" she demanded presently. "He's much littler than us!"

"He's a boy, and the heir," said Nurse importantly; "you're only girls."

Freda pouted, then she made a grimace at Bertie across the table, and he returned it promptly.

But Daffy's eyes were shining.

"Oh, think of it, Freda! One day we shall live in that lovely garden, and Bertie will be outside! We must let him come in and see us sometimes through the little door. And we shall keep dozens of white rabbits, and pick flowers whenever we like. I'd much rather live there than here, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, much; only, then, what will Fibo do?"

"We mustn't send him away. Oh, I'm sure we shall all squeeze in together beautifully. We must tell him about it and see what he says."

"But it won't happen for ever so long," said Freda regretfully; "and how awful of us wanting it to, for Nurse says Dad will have to die to let us live there."

Daffy looked horrified. Then with a bound she came back to the subject in hand.

"So, Nurse, if we're very good, can we go into that garden again? He wants us to come; he said whenever we like we could come to him."

"You'll go nowhere and see nobody unless you're asked properly and I'm with you," said Nurse sharply.

Freda and Daffy looked at each other with agonised eyes, but said no more. When tea was over, Nurse said she was going to take them for a walk. And in half an hour's time the three children were walking sedately along the country road which led to the village.

Freda and Daffy, walking a little in advance of Nurse, were able to talk together without being overheard.

"I shall write him a letter, Daffy, and ask him to write to Nurse and ask us."

"Or a wire," suggested Daffy joyfully. "Mums always asks people to tea by wires or the telephone."

"We haven't a telephone here, but there's a post office in the village. Oh, Daffy, could one of us creep in and send a wire?"

"It's a lot of money, Freda. Wouldn't a letter do?"

"Better still," said Freda excitedly; "we'll send a message—we'll get somebody to take a message. We'll find some one when we get to the village. Nurse said she was going to buy some stamps."

So, full of hope, the little girls walked on, and the village was soon reached. The post office was next to the general shop, and when Nurse went into the post office, Freda asked if she and Daffy could buy some sweets next door. Nurse gave the required permission, and they dashed in. Daffy produced her purse and began choosing her sweets; Freda eagerly turned to the stout smiling woman behind the counter.

"Do you send any of your loaves or tea or veg'tables to the Dower House?"

"Yes, dearie, very often. Mrs. Daw has all her soap and soda and such-like from us. My Willie is going up this evening with a tin of paraffin."

"Oh, please, will you get him to take a message from us to—to—is he Captain Arnold?"

"Yes, that's his name, poor gentleman. Such a pleasant-spoken gent he be, too!"

"Oh, please," went on Freda, with feverish haste, "could you give me a little piece of paper and pencil, just to write the message on?"

"Surely I will, and my Willie will take it with the greatest pleasure."

Paper and pencil were produced. Freda wrote laboriously:

"Plese ask Nurse perlitely to let us come and see you, but not her, she wants to come with us. And we wood like to come to morowe.—FREDA and DAFFY."

They had plenty of time to do what they wanted, for Nurse liked a little gossip sometimes, and Mrs. Vidler at the post office was an old friend of hers.

They came out of the shop delighted with their success. Daffy had two pennyworth of mixed sweets, and Freda, who was always just, gave her a penny from her own purse as her share of the purchase.

"Now he'll write a proper invitation, and Nurse will have to say 'Yes.'"

They were very happy for the rest of that evening, and when the postman came to the house the next morning, and Jane brought up a letter for Nurse, they looked at each other with shining eyes. How quick and prompt he had been! Nurse read her letter through in silence. They anxiously waited for her to speak, but when she did, it was to scold Bertie for spilling his milk, and the little girls were afraid to ask her any questions.

"If she gets cross she won't let us go," said Freda; "we'll be as good as gold till dinner-time."

"If we can," said Daffy doubtfully.

In London they had had two hours' lessons every morning with a daily governess; but to have nothing to do here, and knowing that their mother expected them to "run wild," was the way, they felt, to lead them into scrapes.

Nurse turned them all three into the garden after breakfast, but told them not to go out of sight of the house.

"What shall we play at?" asked Daffy.

Freda was never at a loss for games. Red Indians, pirates, gipsies, bandits had all served their turn. Now, when war was on, German spies, escaped prisoners, submarines, and air machines were what interested them most. The result was that, an hour later, Nurse came out to find Daffy up an oak-tree near the shrubbery, the oak being her flying machine. Freda was dragging a big sack down to the pond, but Bertie, inside the sack, was howling and kicking, and so gave the show away. When Nurse freed him, she found him covered with red earth, and her wrath was great.

"He's a spy. I didn't know the sack was dirty. I got it from the potting shed. He went out of sight of the house when he was hiding. Daffy went up in her flying machine and told me where to find him."

"I won't be dwowned!" shouted Bertie. "And you was smothercating me!"

Nurse called Daffy down from the tree. She had torn her frock, and had a large hole in the knee of her stocking.

"You would try the patience of Job," said Nurse, marching them up into the nursery. "It seems quite impossible for you to play as little ladies should. You make Master Bertie as naughty as yourselves. I shall have to give him a bath, and you will both sit for half an hour on your chairs for punishment."

The punishment chairs were placed in opposite corners of the nursery, and Freda and Daffy took possession of them with their faces towards the wall.

Freda was hot and angry, and kicked her legs to and fro. Daffy was absolutely unruffled.

"Never mind, Freda," she said comfortingly, when Nurse had left the room, "we had a glorious game. And I've left my handkercher up in my air machine, so I shall have to go up and get it as soon as ever I get off this chair. Oh, don't you wish we could live up in trees like the birds? I do."

"I should like to see Nurse having to climb a tall fir-tree every night to get to her nest," said Freda, with malice in her tone. "And I should like her nest to be made of holly. It would serve her right!"

Daffy chuckled with laughter.

"And now, of course," Freda went on gloomily, "she won't let us go and see Fibo this afternoon. Nothing could have turned out worse. I don't know why our games always do!"

"It's Satan, I suppose," said Daffy placidly. "Nurse says it's him who makes us get into scrapes."

Then they were silent. The nursery seemed oppressively warm this morning. Presently Nurse returned. Jane was with Bertie.

"I don't really think I shall let you go now," said Nurse. "I've had an invitation for you to go to tea with Captain Arnold this afternoon, and if you had been good—"

A wail from both chairs interrupted her.

"It isn't as if we really had made up our minds to be wicked," pleaded Freda. "Dirt and holes aren't wicked, and we didn't mean them to come on us!"

"And we're being punished now, Nurse. You can't punish us twice the same day for the same thing!"

"Stop argufying at once," said Nurse sternly. "I punish you for your good, not because it pleases me. Why can't I turn you out into the garden without your rampaging about like wild beasts, and tearing and destroying everything you possess!"

"If you let us go to tea with Captain Arnold, we promise to come home cleaner than when we went!" Freda rashly asserted.

Nurse gave a sniff.

"That you couldn't do, if you pass through my hands before you go."

The little girls were silent. They fancied Nurse was relenting, and wisely sat still on their chairs without even kicking their feet till their half-hour was up.

When dinner-time came, Nurse told them she was going to let them go; and at four o'clock two daintily dressed little maidens in soft white silk frocks and shady straw hats walked sedately along by Nurse's side to the Dower House.

There was no hope of being allowed to crawl in at the entrancing little door to-day. They went down the avenue, out by the lodge gates, along the road until they came to some high green wooden gates in the big wall. Then they walked up a short broad drive with shrubberies on each side, and reached the front of the house.

A pleasant-looking maid opened the door.

"I have brought the young ladies," said Nurse, in a very superior tone, "and I hope they will behave nicely as they should. I will send the nurserymaid for them at seven o'clock. That is the time mentioned."

Then she went away, and the children crossed a wide hall with a black beam across it, and to this beam was suspended a child's swing.

"Dreamikins!" whispered Daffy as she passed.

Then they went through a glass door to the garden, and found Fibo expecting them. He was in his chair under the trees, but he was not drawing; he was smoking his pipe and reading a newspaper. He greeted them with a smile.

"Very pleased to see you. The letter worked all right, didn't it?"

"Yes," said Freda. "It was very nearly a miss though, for we got our clothes in a mess this morning. It's so impossibly difficult to keep clean if you're enjoying yourself."

"We must all try hard this afternoon, or you won't be allowed to come and see me again."

The little girls' tongues wagged fast, they seemed to have so much to tell him—all about the Dower House one day becoming their home, and how Bertie was going to turn them out.

"I can't imagine him daring to do it," said Daffy reflectively. "Why, he's so small, we can do anything to him now. He quite looks up to us, and of course we make him do whatever we tell him. I don't see how he'll ever be so beastly as to tell Mums and us to go out of the house."

"I shouldn't worry about that. Perhaps you'll be queens in castles of your own by that time."

"Yes," said Freda eagerly, with shining eyes; "that's just it. Anything—anything might happen. Such crowds of beautiful things are in front of us!"

"My next beautiful thing is to see Dreamikins," said Daffy softly. "When do you think she'll come?"

"Ah!" said Fibo. "I've heard. One day next week; then we'll have a golden time."

"What day?"

"That's her secret. I am never told. We get ready for her, and she just walks in and surprises me. We always do it like that."

"How lovely! And does she come by herself?"

"Annette brings her."

"Who's Annette?"

"Her nurse. She's French. Dreamikins is very fond of her. Her mother thought she would learn French from her, but I am afraid Annette is too fond of English. She speaks it very well."

Freda and Daffy looked a little awed.

"Mums has a French maid, but we don't like her, and Nurse doesn't either. She says she's a heathen. She goes to Mass!"

"You aren't painting pictures to-day," Daffy said, rather reprovingly.

"No; I'm giving my hands a rest. I'm looking at pictures, and not painting them."

Daffy gazed into his eyes reflectively.

"I wonder what pictures you're looking at," she said. "You seem looking at the sky. Don't you often wish we could get nearer to heaven?"

"No; it's best to be a good way off. It would be like a hungry child gazing through the window into a baker's shop."

"But I should like to do that," said Freda quickly, "because if you can't get things, the next best thing is to pretend you have them; and sometimes in London, when Nurse let us, Daffy and me would pretend to have a feast outside a cake shop. I would ask her to taste some cakes, and she would offer me some tarts, and we would say how they tasted; and really, sometimes I fancied they were right inside my mouth."

Fibo nodded in a very understanding way. Daffy was gazing up into the sky. Then she gave an angelic smile.

"Freda and I used not to like heaven much; God used to frighten us. But we're much fonder of Him now, aren't we, Freda?"

"Yes, since last Sunday."

Freda's eyes began to twinkle. Then she gave a little chuckle.

"We went to church in the morning, Fibo. May we tell you? It was very hot and long, and nothing interessing until the Psalms came. And then I found out one of Nurse's big mistakes. She always hushes us when we're near a church, or saying our prayers, or anywhere near God. You know what I mean? She makes out that God likes us to be whispering; and on Sunday we have to be so quiet that it quite tires us out. It's the longest day that was ever made. Well, we and the clergyman were saying the Psalms, one against the other, and he began, 'Sing we merrily unto God our strength, make a cheerful noise.' Now the Psalms are quite true, aren't they? They're in the Bible."

Fibo nodded. Freda was speaking with breathless eagerness.

"So I told Daffy about it when we got home, and she wouldn't quite believe it. So she got her Bible and found the Psalms, to see if I was right, and somehow she didn't find the same verse, but she found a better one still. It was, 'Make a joyful noise unto the Lord—make a loud noise.'"

She paused.

"Well?" said Fibo inquiringly.

"Well, we did it! We shut the nursery door and we did it! We did all three—the cheerful noise, and the joyful noise, and the loud noise. And Nurse was downstairs; but, of course, she came up, and she was furious! We told her God had told us to do it, and He liked it, and we've been glad ever since that He does; but Nurse made out it was all wrong. Now she can't go against the Bible."

Daffy's face was twinkling all over.

"We did do it!" she said. "We yelled and stamped and shouted. I'm sure we must have been heard from one end of heaven to the other!"

"I wish I'd been there," said Fibo.

"You aren't shocked at noise, are you? Does Dreamikins like to make a noise?"

"Sometimes."

They went on talking, and then tea was brought out under the trees; and Drab, a soft grey cat, and Grinder, a fox-terrier, and Whiskers, the white rabbit, joined them. The little girls thought it was the most delicious tea they had ever eaten, the cakes were so fresh, and there were strawberries and cream; and after it was over, Grinder and Drab and Whiskers all had a gambol together upon the lawn. Of course Freda and Daffy joined them; and when they were all rolling about on the grass together, Fibo took out his sketch-book, and made a rapid sketch of them. He wrote underneath it, "My Tea-party," and when Freda and Daffy saw it they were delighted.

"But promise you'll never show it to Nurse. She would think it awful of us!"

"I think I shall have to talk to Nurse. Is it her legs, do you think, that make her want yours to be as stiff as they are? Or is it her head? What a pity she couldn't have a bit of her altered! Like this!"

Then he drew Nurse's heavy body, with a little, laughing, curly head on the top of it; and then her head, on a tiny, short-frocked child's body, and the child was dancing.

"Which nurse of these two would you like best?" he asked.

The children were enchanted. But after a minute or two, Daffy said gravely:

"I think p'raps Nurse had better be left as she is. I shouldn't like that laughing, curly head when I had a pain; and if she had those dancing legs, how quick she would run after us when we didn't want her to!"

"Yes," said Fibo, smiling; "I think God knew how to make a nurse when He did it. We can't improve upon her."

When Jane came for them they were very loath to go.

Freda said anxiously:

"You don't think that we asked ourselves to tea, did you? We never thought of that; only we were despairing that we should never see you again."

"And we hope," said Daffy softly, "that Nurse will let us come and see you our own way another day, through that dear little door. It's such an adventure!"

"And then we won't have our best frocks on, and can romp all over the place," added Freda.

Fibo assured them they could come through that door any day and every day they liked; and they walked home with Jane, feeling that a very good time was in front of them.

CHAPTER III

Dreamikins Arrives

FIBO let his newspaper drop on the grass with a little sigh. It was hard to read of the big War raging in Flanders, and to know the need of every man in England to be taking his part in it, and yet to feel himself out of it all. "Might as well be dead," he muttered, and then he shook his head at his discontented self.

It was a very hot afternoon, and he had a headache. Grinder lay on his side panting, with his tongue well out; he was half-asleep. Suddenly every hair bristled on his back, and he darted off to the house.

"Hears the advent of his enemy, the butcher boy," Fibo said to himself languidly.

Was it the pattering of leaves from the tree above that he heard behind him? Suddenly two soft little velvet arms were round his neck. A warm rose-bud of a mouth was kissing his ear.

"Here I are, Fibo!"

Such a light and gladness came into Fibo's face. In another moment he had dragged his small niece round where he could see her.

Dreamikins was always a pretty sight. To-day her golden curls, her fair dainty face with its big blue eyes and long-curled black lashes, her graceful little figure in its dainty white muslin hat and frock, and her white socks and shoes, seemed in his eyes to shine with extra glory.

"You're just in time," Fibo said gravely, "to save your Uncle Fibo from turning into a growling grizzly bear."

"I'm never just too late, are I?" said Dreamikins, dancing up and down before him in ecstasy.

Dreamikins' grammar was shocking; her uncle never tried to improve it.

"Any news?" asked Fibo carelessly.

That was the question Dreamikins always liked to be asked when she had been away from him.

Her eyes looked big and solemn. She clasped her two tiny hands, pressing her finger-tips together, as she did when in terrible earnest about anything.

"The news this time is good, Fibo. You'll be surprised to hear that Blacky left me, 'bout two weeks ago. I felt quite alone and mis'able, and then God gave me a darling little angel Cherubine. She plays with me all day long, and whispers all night, unless I'm asleep, you know. And she helps me to be good, you know. I told her how Blacky helped me to be wicked. I reely got quite tarred of fighting, fighting him all day long; and Cherubine doesn't put anything wicked into my head at all."

"Then my naughty scamp is no more, and I have an angel niece," said Fibo, looking at her reflectively. "I should think Annette doesn't know herself."

"Well, I aren't exackly an angel yet—not like Cherubine. Would you like to speak to her, Fibo? She's rather shy, and she gene'lly gets behind me."

Fibo had made acquaintance with a good many personalities who accompanied Dreamikins upon her visits to him. The first one was Old Man Sol. When Dreamikins was three she talked about him. He seemed rather a harmless old soul, but a great comfort to Dreamikins. She sometimes called her nurse after she had been put into her cot at night, because Old Man Sol wanted to be kissed, or tucked up tighter. She always talked hard to him, and he always helped her in her games. By and by he faded away, and a shadowy, indescribable Pollybill took his place. Dreamikins was absolutely happy with this creation of hers.

"Is it a she or a he?" Fibo asked one day.

"It isn't neither," said Dreamikins triumphantly.

"Oh, an 'it,' is it?"

But Dreamikins shook her head. "Pollybill is only Pollybill, and nuffin else at all. I call Pollybill 'you.'"

"What does 'you' look like?"

"Pollybill has a kitty's eyes, big and round, no cloves, only soft hair, and can be very little and very big, just what I want. And Pollybill always says 'Yes' to me, never 'No.'"

Dreamikins could describe this individual no better, and Fibo was rather glad when Pollybill departed. Then came two or three fairies and sprites, but none of them ever stayed with her long. Blacky was a Pixie. He had a long innings, and Dreamikins found him a lovely scapegoat for all her mischievous propensities.

"I 'sure you it was Blacky made me do it. He pushed me into it, and I foughted him till I was tarred out."

She had brought Blacky with her to Fibo on her last visit, and he was glad to think that he had gone for good.

"I'm very glad to welcome you to my house, Cherubine," said Fibo quite gravely, "and I hope you're going to make a long stay with us."

Dreamikins put her head on one side as if listening to somebody.

"She says she likes me so much, Fibo, that she's going to stay with me till she takes me to heaven."

"I hope that you and she will grow old together, then," said Fibo.

Dreamikins looked quite shocked.

"Oh, Fibo dear, angels never grow! I'll tell you a little more about her. Mummy told me I had a guardian angel, so she said I didn't want any of my 'make ups.' Mummy doesn't unnerstand like you; she always calls them 'make ups.' So I thought about it a lot, and God told me He wanted me to be good. It makes Him so uncomfor'ble when I'm naughty. So I asked Him didn't He think He could send me a darling little angel to take care of me, instead of the grave grown-up one that always hangs over children in beds. I asked Him to try to do it, because I must have somebody to play with. And He said He'd lend me Cherubine. And she came down, and tucked her wings under my pillow, and kissed me, and we sleeps together, and when I wake she wakes. And now, please, may I show her Whiskers? And oh, Fibo dear, are you very glad to see us?"

"Yes, I truly am; and I have a surprise for you. I can keep secrets as well as you."

Dreamikins danced up and down on her toes.

"Tell us. We're simply dying to hear!"

"I have two real little girls for you to play with."

"Oh, Fibo!"

Dreamikins stopped dancing. She could hardly believe such good news.

"Where? Whose are they?"

"They're not in my pocket," said Fibo, laughing; "but one fine afternoon your little door opened, and in they crawled from the park."

"Real little girls?"

"Real. They're bigger than you; and they live in the old Hall."

"In the big shut up house? And what's their names?"

"I call them E.E. and B.B.—Elusive Elf and Busy Brain."

Dreamikins nodded approvingly. Then she promptly seated herself on her uncle's knees.

"Now," she said, with raised finger, "begin at the very first beginning, and tell me all about them."

Fibo meekly obeyed her. They were talking hard when Annette appeared to ask if Dreamikins would come in to tea.

"I'm going to have it with Fibo."

"But there's an egg for you," said Annette—"a little brown egg produced only this morning by Madame Daw from the fat white hen. She has eaten nothing—not a little morsel, Captain—since her early breakfast. Her tongue only loves to talk, never to eat."

Dreamikins knitted her brows, then she grandly waved Annette away.

"The egg can come here," she said; "I'm not going to the egg."

Fibo looked at Annette, then at Dreamikins.

"Cherubine," he said slowly, "will you take Dreamikins in to her tea? I'm not having mine till an hour later, and her body wants some food if her brain does not."

Dreamikins opened her lips, then shut them tightly. She slipped off her uncle's knee.

"Just this once," she said, "I'll go; but Cherubine lives without eating, and she needn't try to make me."

"But you always eat when you come here," said Fibo cheerfully. "And to-morrow we'll have tea in the garden together, and perhaps we'll have B.B. and E.E."

"You're a very C.O.," said Dreamikins, laughing, and then she danced away to the house. Fibo and she had many names they called each other, and C.O. meant Cunning Ogre.

So the next day Freda and Daffy received an invitation to tea. It came in a big envelope, and inside was a sketch of Dreamikins dancing up and down.

"The pleasure of Miss Freda's and Miss Daffy's company is requested at four o'clock upon the Dower House lawn.

"R.S.V.P.

"N.B.C."

"What does 'N.B.C.' mean?" questioned Nurse, looking at the note suspiciously through her spectacles.

Freda responded promptly:

"No best clothes! Fibo hates best clothes, and so do we. He's very fond of 'N.B.C.'"

"Dreamikins has come," said Daffy, with shining eyes. "The postman told me she came yesterday. Nurse, can we ask Dreamikins to tea one day? We must ask her back."

"'Tis to be hoped she's not so queer as her name," said Nurse grimly. "If she be proper behaved I won't go against it."

Freda and Daffy were punctual to the moment. They were obliged to go round the front way, for Nurse accompanied them to the door; but Dreamikins had been watching for them and came running to meet them. She did not seem afraid of Nurse's grimness, but held out her small hand.

"How do you do? Will you come to tea too? Are you the governess?"

"I'm the young ladies' nurse," said Nurse, in her grand tone. But she was rather pleased at being taken for a governess.

"No, I'll not come in, thank you; and, Miss Freda and Miss Daffy, you're to be good children, and I shall expect you back at seven. Jane will come for you."

She turned away and left them.

Dreamikins stood confronting them for a moment in silence. Then she smiled seraphically:

"Cherubine and me like you awfully much. Do you think you shall like us?"

"Fibo said we would," said Daffy cautiously; but Freda caught hold of Dreamikins' hand.

"If you can play pretence games we'll just love you," she said with enthusiasm.

Dreamikins led them out into the garden, and for the next hour they played together. Fibo said he wanted to read, and he would talk to them later. When tea came out under the shady trees, the three little girls seemed quite tired and exhausted enough to enjoy the rest.

"We've been through the door into the Wilderness," said Dreamikins, "we've hunted boars and tigers, and rescued just a few Ogre's prisoners. And I can run the fastest, but Freda is the strongest, and Daffy can jump the highest."

They all chattered together as if they had been friends all their lives.

Once Dreamikins got grave.

"We didn't have any soldier fighting, Fibo. Mummy made me promise not to be playing that. And Cherubine cries when people hurt each other. She says they never hurt each other in heaven. They don't even scratch the skin on their knees when they tumble down."

"I suppose they don't have stones," said Daffy thoughtfully.

"The stones are quite soft and velvety," said Dreamikins quickly; "and sometimes you can eat them; they're sweets, you know."

"That's fairyland," objected Freda. "The Bible doesn't say anything about sweets."

"No; the streets are paved with gold," said Daffy.

"Nice to slide along on," said Dreamikins contentedly.

Her uncle laughed.

"Oh, you Babes!" he exclaimed.

Dreamikins admonished him with her small finger.

"Don't be a P.D., Fibo. We're not babes—not in the least!"

"What's a P.D.?" asked Daffy curiously.

"Proud Dog!" said Dreamikins. "He's always a P.D. when he calls me a 'Babe.'"

Then she said with a sudden change of tone:

"And now let's talk about the War, Fibo. Cherubine is just having a nice little nap, so we needn't mind her feelings."

"Anything but that, Dreamikins," said her uncle gravely. "I thank God daily you little ones are kept in peace and safety."

"We don't talk about it much," said Freda. "Nurse says horrors are not for nurseries. But Daffy and me want to know what will happen if everybody kills everybody. Who'll be the soldiers then?"

"God won't let all the peoples be killed," said Dreamikins. "It will crowd up heaven so all at once, and make it so stuffy!"

Freda and Daffy were not yet accustomed to Dreamikins' speeches. They stared at her in wonder. Then Daffy ventured to put her right.

"Do you think heaven is a little place? It stretches and stretches like elastic, and the more people go in the bigger it gets."

Dreamikins' blue eyes looked past Daffy as if she had not heard her.

"And of course if all the men did get killed, the women would go and finish the War, wouldn't they, Fibo? Mummy would—she wants to be there now, and I'd get a lovely gun and go with her."

"Oh, you modern child! Leave the War alone," said her uncle. "Let us talk of Whiskers, or Pixies, or anything but the Bad Bit of Life which is with us."

"Tell us one of your stories—not a arrygory, because I have to find the meaning, and it spoils it."

So the little girls settled down, and Fibo told them a wonderful, nonsensical story about a fat giant with a cough, who was afraid of his wife and tried to hide his wicked deeds from her, only his cough always betrayed him. And they listened breathlessly, and when he had finished, Freda gave a long sigh.

"You are a beautiful story-teller. I could listen all night."

"Yes," said Dreamikins proudly; "Fibo has got a big bump in his head, he says, which is bigger than other people's, and a little fairy lives inside it who whispers these stories to him. Sometimes she goes to sleep, and he can't wake her, and then he says he can't make up stories by himself, which is a pity."

"Dreamikins is exhausting in her demands," said Fibo. "The more she hears the more she wants to hear. My poor tongue aches with its constant wagging."

When seven o'clock came, and Jane appeared, Freda gave a groan.

"I could stay here for ever; couldn't you, Daffy?"

Daffy nodded.

"Yes, even if we had nothing to eat," she said.

And Fibo looked at her with his funny little smile.

"That's a great compliment to Dreamikins and me," he said.

Dreamikins was already arranging in a rapid whisper with Freda a time of meeting in the park the next day.

"I shall come through the little door," she said, "and we'll all go wild; shall we?"

Then she added impressively:

"I shall tell Cherubine she mustn't stop us before it's really time."

"What do you mean?" asked Freda.

"Well, before we're really wicked. You see, she has to keep me good. God sent her to do it."

"Oh!"

Freda looked doubtful. Then her brow cleared.

"She hasn't anything to do with Daffy and me. She can't stop us."

Dreamikins looked at her thoughtfully, but said no more. They kissed each other, and the sisters walked home feeling they had a new friend.

CHAPTER IV

The Return Visit

"IT'S too bad, she won't come!"

Freda stood at the nursery window with Daffy. Their noses were flattened against the panes, and they were gazing disconsolately down the beech avenue.

It was raining fast, softly, persistently, and it did not mean to stop, even though Dreamikins had been asked to tea, and it was now four o'clock. Tea was laid on the round table in the nursery. Freda and Daffy had inspected it very critically when Nurse was out of the room washing Bertie's face and hands and putting him into a clean holland suit in honour of the occasion.

There was a big currant cake in the centre of the table, some strawberry jam, and a large plate of cut bread-and-butter.

"I should like one of Mum's teas," said Daffy, with a sigh, "with sangwiches, and hot tea-cakes, and sugar-iced cakes, and chocolates. I would like Dreamikins to think we had very nice teas."

"And tea in the garden is so much nicer than in a room," sighed Freda.

"But she wouldn't have tea in the garden to-day," said Daffy.

Then they went to the window to watch for her coming. It was Nurse who told them she was sure she would not come, and now they had begun to believe it.

Bertie came up to them, and stretched up on tiptoes to see too.

"There's a b'llella!" he suddenly announced.

And, sure enough, his quick eyes had discovered the big umbrella first. It was waving about rather uncertainly, and two tiny legs and feet were underneath it.

"She's coming, Nurse! And all by herself Dreamikins is allowed to come out to tea alone."

They rushed out of the room and down the stairs to meet her. They found her in the front hail, and Purling, the old butler, was taking her wet umbrella from her.

"She's come in at the front door!" said Daffy, in awed tones.

Dreamikins looked up at them with her radiant smile.

"Did you come all by yourself?" asked Freda.

Dreamikins opened her lips quickly, then shut them tight, and waited quite a moment before she spoke.

"I was just going to say 'Yes,'" she said. "I wanted to say it, but Cherubine pinched me, so I knew I mustn't. Annette brought me to the gate and then I got her to leave me."

"Where did Cherubine pinch you?" asked Daffy curiously.

"Oh, just inside my heart," Dreamikins answered airily. "She gets in there and does what she likes."

Then she kissed her friends rather solemnly, and followed them upstairs to the nursery without saying another word.

Nurse welcomed her quite kindly. Dreamikins in a clean white frock, and her best manners, brought a smile to Nurse's lips.

Bertie hastened up to shake hands. He was very excited over this new visitor, and was ready to be friends with her at once.

Very soon they were sitting round the tea-table. Shyness had suddenly descended upon Freda and Daffy. It was Dreamikins who did most of the talking—Dreamikins and Nurse.

"I think," Dreamikins said, looking at Nurse with one of her sweetest smiles, "that I shall call you H.D. Do you mind if I do?"

"Why H.D.?" demanded Nurse.

"It means something to me," Dreamikins replied. "I always like calling people by letters. I call Mummie D.Q. Not when she scolds me, though—never then!"

She shook her curls with vigour as she spoke. Then she condescended to explain.

"D.Q. means Darling Queen," she said.

Freda and Daffy began to guess under their breath what H.D. meant, but Dreamikins would not tell them. She went on calmly:

"You see, I can't call you Nurse, because you aren't my nurse. I gave up nurses when I was quite little; they changed so often, and Mummie and me got quite tarred of them."

"I hope you weren't a very troublesome little girl," said Nurse sternly. "Children who have no nursery are always spoilt and unruly. I am sorry for their mothers, but all the best families keep their children in the nursery till they go to school."

"Did you have a nurse?" asked Dreamikins.

But Nurse changed the conversation.

When tea was over, Jane cleared away the tea, and Nurse and she left the nursery for a short time. Then the children's tongues ran fast.

"Show me your house; it's such a big one. Let us play hide-and-seek in the passages."

"Nurse won't let us. We can never do anything nice. What is H.D.?"

"Haughty Dragon," said Dreamikins, laughing gaily. "Fibo and I always call people H.D.'s who look like your nurse does. Oh, we must play hide-and-seek. I'll go and ask her."

Away darted Dreamikins, peeping into every room and dancing up and down the passages as if it were all a game. She found Nurse, and actually coaxed the permission she wanted out of her.

"It's a wet afternoon, and if you promise not to spoil or disarrange anything, you can do it," said Nurse.

Then followed a lovely hour. Freda and Daffy and even Bertie were as excited and happy as their little guest. At last the time came when Dreamikins could not be found. Every corner and cupboard in the few rooms in which they were allowed to hide were ransacked. The passages with their queer corners were searched again and again, and the children came to Nurse in the nursery with troubled faces.

"We're quite tired out," said Freda gloomily, "and we think she's climbed up one of the chimneys and got on to the roof."

Nurse bestirred herself.

"She's a mischievous child, I fear. There's such daring in her eye; but it won't do for her to come to harm here."

So Nurse went from room to room, and then at the end of one of the passages thought of a little door which led into the cistern-room. There were steps up inside, and on these steps was a white hair ribbon.

Nurse got agitated, and called aloud, and a weak little voice answered her:

"I'm nearly drownded, but Cherubine is keeping me up."

Sure enough, in the big cistern, drenched to the skin, Dreamikins was clinging with her hands to the top; her feet were on a tiny ledge that mercifully was inside, or the big cistern would indeed have drowned her. She had clambered in, taken off her shoes and stockings, and imagined that the water was not very deep.

"I was so hot, I wanted to paddle. I thought it was a little pond, and then I splashed down ever so far, but I got up again and held on tight and screamed, and I've screamed away all my voice, but Cherubine helped me."

She was certainly exhausted with her wetting and with fright. Nurse got her out with a stern set face, and carried her off to the night-nursery, where she changed all her clothes, gave her a hot drink, and then took her back to her little friends.

"Now, none of you are to leave this room," she said. "It's a mercy we haven't had a death in this house, and it isn't this child's fault that we haven't!"

Dreamikins sat still for five minutes whilst she explained to the others how she had come to be found in such a situation.

"I thought I was going to be drownded, and I asked God to send me a better angel, for Cherubine was too small to help me. But she just managed it, till the H.D. came. And now what shall we play at?"

They settled down to a game of marbles on the nursery floor. But very soon they tired of their game and began to talk again.

"Why do you live in such a big empty house?" questioned Dreamikins.

"Because Dad and Mums are in London," said Freda, "and there's nobody to fill their part of the house."

"I could get some people to fill it," said Dreamikins thoughtfully.

"What kind?" asked Daffy. "We shouldn't take anybody into our house, you know."

"It doesn't really belong to us at all," said Freda hastily. "Bertie will have it one day, and turn us out."

Bertie stared with his round eyes at his sister.

"I won't turn you out," he said. "I couldn't. You're so strong."

Dreamikins' eyes were gazing away into space. She said slowly:

"Fibo and I read a very interessing story in the Bible last night when I went to bed. It was about the good people who are turned into sheep, and the wicked who turn into goats. Goats don't live in heaven—only sheep. And if you want to be a proper sheep you have to do some differcult things. They're differcult for children; grown-up people could do them easily, but I've been thinking we really ought to begin some of them in case we die quickly. I shouldn't like to find myself a goat all of a sudden."

Freda and Daffy were not so fond of Bible stories as Dreamikins seemed to be. They looked bored, and Dreamikins was quick to notice it.

"Now, you just listen to me," she said, with upraised finger, "and I'll tell you what we've got to do. We've got to do six things, and if we do them to the proper people, Jesus will count it that we've done it to Him. Fibo explained it beautifully; he always does. We must give meat to somebody who's hungry, and drink to somebody who's thirsty, and take into our houses a stranger. That's what made me begin to think of it. Fancy how many strangers you could take in this big house! And we must visit somebody who's sick, and somebody who's in prison, and we must give a poor, naked, ragged beggar some clothes."

"We couldn't do it possibly," said Freda emphatically.

But Daffy's eyes began to shine.

"Oh yes, we could; it would be beautiful!" she said.

Dreamikins put her arms round her and hugged her.

"You and me will begin it, and then Freda will, too," she said. "We must. Cherubine will help. She thinks we ought to."

The little heads got close together. Nurse was sewing by the window, so they talked in whispers.

And then, all too soon, Jane appeared, saying that "Miss Broughton's maid" had arrived to take her home.

Dreamikins was very reluctant to go, but Nurse produced her clothes all beautifully dried, and Annette came upstairs to wait upon her.

"Ah, Miss Emmeline, you be always in trouble. What a peety!" exclaimed Annette, when she was told of Dreamikins' escapade.

Dreamikins smiled up at her.

"I 'sure you it's no trouble to me, none at all!" she said, with the greatest composure.

She hugged Freda and Daffy warmly, kissed Bertie, shook hands very politely with Nurse, and trotted off. They watched from the window her little figure tripping down the drive. Annette was holding a big umbrella over her.

"I'm not at all sure whether she's a fit playmate for you," said Nurse, with a shake of her head. "If she leads you into worse mischief than the two of you are generally up to, the house won't hold you all!"

Freda and Daffy said nothing, but presently they began to discuss Dreamikins together.

"She seems so ridicklously good," said Freda; "I never heard anybody speak about God as she does. Of course, Cherubine is a make up, but she believes it, and now she makes out we must do all this or we shan't please God. I never think about pleasing God at all. Nurse would say we never could. He's so awfully holy and far away."

"Yes; she's good," said Daffy slowly, "but she isn't proper and stupid like some good children are. And I think there'll be a lot of fun about being these Bible sheep. She gets a lot of fun out of being good."

"Yes; but she doesn't do it because of that. She really loves Jesus Christ—she told me so. I almost wish I did, but I don't."

Daffy made no answer. She thought a great deal more than Freda did, and some of her thoughts were serious.

"We'll try and take a stranger in as soon as ever we can," said Daffy. "It will be most exciting! We'll smuggle him in by one of the windows downstairs, or else Nurse will make a row."

"It might be a 'her,'" said Freda; "we don't know who it will be yet."

"It must be somebody who wants a night's lodging—some poor beggar. We see some going along the roads when we are out."

"I wonder if Dreamikins will find somebody before we do. She has no horrid nurse keeping her from doing things she wants."

"A H.D.," said Daffy, with twinkling eyes. "We'll call her H.D. to ourselves, Freda; she'll never know."

They began to wonder when they would see Dreamikins again. Their days seemed dull without her, but Nurse determined that they should not meet too often. She was distrustful of Dreamikins; there was something in her joyous face and free easy manner that touched on insubordination. And then something happened that put Dreamikins out of her head. A letter came one morning from Mrs. Harrington, and it brought sad news. The children's father had been killed by a Turkish shell in Mesopotamia.

When Nurse broke the news to the children, her voice shook. Freda and Daffy would not believe it.

"Dad killed, Nurse! Oh, he can't be! It's a mistake. He can't possibly be dead!"

"What does Mums say?"

"She's coming down this week. Dear heart alive! What shall we all do? The master—so young and hearty—but there, this War be takin' all the best! He had no need to volunteer as he did!"

Freda and Daffy crept into a corner of their nursery and cried a little. Nurse was crying easily and almost happily; tears hurt and choked Freda. She was horribly ashamed of them, and struggled to overcome them. Daffy felt she ought to cry harder than she did. She loved her father, but could not yet take in what his loss would mean. They had never seen very much of him; he had always been so busy, but sometimes he would take them to the Zoo or to Madame Tussaud's or to the Pantomime, and then the hours were golden.

"Shall we go on living here?" she asked Freda. "Perhaps Mums will take us back to London."

"Oh, I hope not. Oh, Daffy, do you remember what Nurse said? It has come to pass, and we never thought it would."

"About this being Bertie's house if Dad died? Yes, I remember."

Daffy spoke soberly, but Freda's eagerness carried her on.

"Of course if it's Bertie's house now he can give us leave to do anything we like, and it will be quite easy to put strangers up for the night. Nurse could say nothing at all, nothing. We'll ask Bertie now."

Bertie was pulled into the corner which Freda and Daffy always retired to when they had important business on hand. It was the corner which was farthest from Nurse's chair, and from her quick ears, which often heard more than they were meant to do.

"Bertie, this is your house now. You'll give us leave to have one of the bedrooms to do what we like with, won't you?"

Bertie stared at his sister with round eyes.

"Is it mine own house? Why is it?" he asked.

"Because dear Dad is dead, and he has left it to you."

"But I don't want Dad to be deaded. It makes Nurse cry."

"It makes me cry too," said Freda, gulping down a lump in her throat; "but God has done it, so there's nothing to say. And this is very important. It has to do with God. He wishes us to do it, and we want a bedroom, Daffy and me."

"What must I do?" asked Bertie meekly.

"Make him write it on paper," said Daffy, "like one of our story-books. Don't you remember a man left a little girl—Helen her name was—all his money and a big house, and he wrote it on a bit of paper?"

"I'll write it," said Freda quickly. "We'll do it at once, in case we might be stopped."

So a piece of paper was found, and a black stump of pencil, and Freda wrote in her best round copy-book writing:

"I give to Freda and Daffy one of my bedrooms in this house for somebody that God wants to stay here."

And then they told Bertie he must sign his name. He had great trouble in doing this, but they stood over him till it was done, and then Freda folded up the paper and put it into a small box of hers which locked.

"Now," she said to Bertie, "this paper is a secret, and you mustn't tell Nurse."

"I haven't been a naughty boy?" questioned poor Bertie, who always connected secrecy with misdoings.

"You've been a 'markably good boy," said Freda approvingly; and Bertie ran back to his brick-building with great content. "Now we'll have to get the room ready," said Freda triumphantly, "and then we'll find the stranger."

"But we mustn't do anything just now," said Daffy, who generally checked Freda's rapid plans. "It won't be proper. Look at Nurse. She's still crying! And we're forgetting to cry ourselves."

So they sat quietly in their corner, and began to talk about their father, and then they felt more and more miserable, and more tears fell. When Jane came in they felt pleased to hear her say to Nurse:

"The poor children! How they feel it! 'Twill be comfort for us to have the Mistress down. 'Tis a terrible blow, sure enough!"

CHAPTER V

Feeding the Hungry

MRS. HARRINGTON did not come down to her children for some days. When she arrived she was in deep black, and she brought the family lawyer with her. She did not see much of her children, but then she never had. She cried a little over them the first evening of her arrival, then she began to discuss their clothes with Nurse.

"I will have no black frocks. Keep them in their holland and white ones, and give them black sashes and ribbons, and put a black ribbon round their hats. That is all that is necessary."

"As long as we are in the country, I suppose, ma'am," said Nurse, with rather a shocked face.

"I am not going to have you back in town for some time. I am going to let our town house, but I will talk to you about this later on."

Nurse looked rather dismayed, but she said nothing.

This was all that the children heard. They were pleased at the idea of staying on in the country, and now that Nurse was more occupied with their mother, and less in the nursery, they enjoyed greater liberty. Jane was very good-natured, and was not particular about their behaviour. When she went out walking with them they could do pretty well as they liked. One afternoon they met Dreamikins with her maid. She welcomed them with rapture.

"I've been longing to see you. Cherubine and me feel quite dull. Fibo told me your daddy was dead. Are you very sad?"

"Of course we are," said Daffy. "We've cried gallons, and all the house is miserable, and everybody wears black dresses but us; it's a shame!"

"Do you like black frocks? Why?"

"Because they don't show the dirt," said Freda promptly. "We hoped Mums would give us some, but she won't."

"I s'pose you've been too miserable to think of being sheep."

"No-o," said Freda slowly; "we've laid plans for the stranger's bedroom, but it isn't ready yet."

"Mine is," said Dreamikins, with pride. "I maded the bed myself. I asked Fibo if I might get a bedroom ready for a visitor, and he said 'Yes.' Fibo nearly always says 'Yes,' he is such an A.M."

"What's that?"

"Angel Man. I always call him that when he is special kind. I've come out this morning to hunt about for a stranger, but I can't find one; not even a little one. Everybody we've met lives about here."

"We might do some of the other things first," said Daffy thoughtfully.

"But the stranger is the most exciting," said Freda. "I'm longing to meet him."

And then as they were walking along the lane talking eagerly somebody came towards them. It was a man, and he was in dusty clothes, and he limped. He carried an old sack across his shoulder, and one of his boots was tied round his foot with a handkerchief.

In a moment the three little girls darted towards him.

Dreamikins reached him first.

"Would you like to sleep at our house to-night?" she asked him breathlessly.

"No, at ours," shouted Freda and Daffy together.

He looked at them surlily.

"Garn with yer games!" he said; and he pushed past them, but Dreamikins laid her soft little hand on his arm.

"You must listen—we'll make you. It isn't a game; it's real sober truth. If you don't want us to take you in, p'raps you're hungry, or thirsty. Are you?"

Then the old tramp stopped.

"Yes," he said, "I be fair longin' for a drink. Have ye a copper, little leddies?"

But Dreamikins shook her head. "We must give it to you ourselves, and I reached you first, so I'll do it."

Freda and Daffy looked rebellious. But Dreamikins turned upon them with her sweetest smile.

"You won't mind, will you? I'll just go and get him a glass of milk. I'll take him to our house and give it to him. You see, my house is nearer than yours."

Before Freda and Daffy could offer any objections she had turned the corner of the lane with the tramp.

Annette, who had been talking to Jane, now hurried up.

"Ah, Miss Emmeline!" she exclaimed. "Where is it now that cheeld has gone? Away with a beggar? What a life I lead!"

She ran after her little charge, and Freda and Daffy were following, when Jane stopped them, and insisted upon going another way.

"'Tisn't time to be turning back to the village yet. Come, Miss Freda, we're going to the wood where the nuts are. You let them go and fight their own battles. We'll go on where we meant to go."

Jane gained her point after some disputing; but Daffy whispered:

"We'll go and see Dreamikins this afternoon when we're playing in the garden, and we'll go through the little door."

FREDA AND DAFFY POUNCED UPON HIM IMMEDIATELY

"I mean to be first next time," said Freda. "Dreamikins will take every one away from us if we don't take care."

For the first time they felt rather angry with their little friend; but they were very curious to know whether she had given the strange man a drink or not.

"The thing for us to do is to be ready for everything out of doors," said Freda, with decision. "We must have food and drink in our pockets, and give them to the very first beggar we see."

"I wish it wasn't beggars we have to look for; they're so dirty and rude," said Daffy discontentedly.

But on their way home fortune seemed to favour them. They came across a little boy with a white face and ragged coat sitting in the hedge. His feet were bare, and he was clutching a bundle which rested on his knees. Freda and Daffy pounced upon him immediately.

"Are you thirsty?"

"Hungry, are you?"

"Sick?"

"Do you want a nice bed to-night to go to sleep on?"

The boy looked at them with rather frightened eyes, and didn't speak.

"Who are you, and where do you live?" asked Freda, trying to speak more quietly. "You must be quick and answer, because Jane will be interfering, so make haste."

The boy jerked his thumb back over his shoulder.

"My feyther be on his rounds. He've gone over to them there 'ouses to mend their pots and pans."

"Is he a tinker?"

The boy nodded.

"And are you very poor? Wouldn't you like us to give you something to eat and drink?"

Another nod, but the boy's face brightened, and he looked up at them expectantly.

Alas, Jane came up.

"Now, Miss Freda, Nurse don't allow you to speak to tramps, I know."

"He isn't a tramp," said Freda indignantly; "his father is a tinker. We have a picture in our book 'Tim the Tinker.' They're kind of gipsies, and he's a very nice little boy."

Daffy bent her head near the stranger child.

"Come up to the Hall this afternoon at three o'clock, and wait behind the big tree in front of the house," she whispered.

Freda heard the whisper and approved. Very often whilst she hotly disputed with Nurse, Daffy quietly went and did the thing they wanted to do.

Jane found no difficulty in getting them to come home. Freda and Daffy walked on sedately in front of her. They talked eagerly in low tones, and made plans for the good of the small wayfarer.

They were turned out in the garden as usual, after their nursery dinner. Both Freda and Daffy had managed to secrete some meat, and Freda had added a piece of currant pudding, which she put in her pocket. Daffy had got a medicine bottle filled with clean water. They made their way to the grand old cedar in the centre of the lawn, and there sat down to wait for their visitor. Bertie was trundling his wheelbarrow along the gravel path. He was filling it with small stones as he went.

"We shall do better than Dreamikins," said Daffy. "And the Bible says a cup of cold water, not milk, is the thing to be given. I remember Nurse reading it to us long ago, so I've got a cup in my pocket too."

"But we haven't got his bed ready," said Freda disconsolately. "It seems so difficult; p'raps he won't want it. We'll ask him."

The time seemed long as they sat there and waited.

At last they thought they saw something moving in the shrubbery at the bottom of the lawn; and then a little figure came out of it, and crept up to them very shyly. He was barefooted no longer. He had washed his face and hands and looked quite tidy and respectable.

Freda looked a little disappointed.

"Are you really hungry and thirsty?" she asked sternly. "Speak the truth, for this isn't a game, it's a—a religious thing!"

"And," said Daffy, looking at him with dancing eyes, "if it's done properly it will turn us into sheep."

Well might the small boy stare at the children in dazed wonder.

"There be six of us," he said, "and times be bad, and feyther he won't go for a soldier, and mother she lams it into him he oughter."

"Of course he ought," said Freda; "our father went out to fight in Egypt somewhere, and he's been killed."

The small boy did not seem impressed, but he told them he was "fair famished."

"Now sit down, and we'll give you something to eat and drink. You first, Daffy."

So Daffy with great pride pulled out of her pocket a small china cup and her medicine bottle of water.

She filled the cup solemnly and presented it to him.

He looked at it, took a gulp, then pitched the cup on the grass, and Freda declared afterwards that he used a "wicked swear" word.

"I didn't come up 'ere in the bloomin' heat to be fooled," he said.

Freda and Daffy looked quite frightened.

Freda hastily produced some slices of cold roast mutton in a paper parcel.

"We're not fooling you; we're giving you what the Bible tells us to give you—meat and water. And I've a piece of pudding besides. Here it is!"

He almost snatched the meat from her, and ate it wolfishly in his fingers.

"Hain't you got no more?" he asked.

"Here's the pudding," said Freda.

She and Daffy watched him with disgusted faces. Then Daffy said very gently:

"I don't think you know how very differcult it's been to get you anything at all. We had to get Nurse out of the room, and coax Jane, and then she would hardly let us take any."

The pudding quickly disappeared, and then the boy's bright impudent eyes looked up.

"Mother thought as 'ow you might give me something for the little 'uns. Feyther—he drinks more'n he earns."

"We've nothing more to-day," said Freda hastily; "except p'raps we could get a bedroom for you. Would you like to sleep with us one night?"

He grinned, but shook his head.

"Where do you sleep?" asked Daffy.

"We lives in Northcott; we was only comin' roun' the village 'ere, feyther and me. Mother 'll be on the look-out for me now; 'er did hope for a napple puddin' or such-like."

Even Freda and Daffy received that suggestion suspiciously. Apple puddings, of course, would be a boy's taste, but a mother with a starving family might prefer something more nourishing. Then from under his jacket he produced a dirty white calico bag.

"Mother giv' me this to bring back full," he said.

Freda and Daffy gasped as they saw the size of it.

They consulted together in low tones.

"You see, we shall be feeding a lot of hungry children all at once," said Freda. "I'm sure it would be a good thing to do. Let's take the bag, Daffy, and go round to the yard by the back-kitchen door. The kitchen-maid might give us some scraps."

"Yes; we'll tell him to wait here."

No sooner said than done. The boy threw himself down on the grass under the tree, and the little girls ran off with his bag.

They were fortunate in meeting Nellie, the kitchen-maid. She was filling a can from a tap in the yard. They hastily explained to her what they wanted.

"A dear little hungry boy, and he will be glad of any scraps."

"Dear Nellie, do give us some, but don't tell Nurse."

She laughed.

"Eh, but you'll be gettin' me into a scrape sure enough if Cook catches me."

But she took the bag, and in about five minutes' time came back with it nearly full.

"'Twill only be thrown to the fowls and dogs," she said. "There, get on, or else we'll all be getting into trouble."

Away marched the little girls with their burden, but, alas! as they turned round the corner of the house they saw a big motor at the hall door.

Their mother was saying good-bye to some friends, and, to add to their dismay, Nurse was crossing the lawn with Bertie.

Mrs. Harrington caught sight of her little girls, and called to them.

"Come and speak to your godmother, Freda; and Daffy too. Come along!"

Daffy ran forward, but, on the impulse of the moment, Freda dropped her bag and sat upon it. It was the only way she could hide it.

Daffy stopped when she saw her sister was not following her.

"Go on, Daffy; I can't get up," said Freda desperately.

"What is Freda doing?" asked Mrs. Harrington, as she introduced her little girl to a pleasant-looking motherly woman—a Lady Aline Cotteswode—and her son, an invalided soldier from the War.

"She can't get up," said Daffy nervously.

"Has she hurt herself? Oh, I must see my goddaughter!"

In another moment, to Freda's horror, her mother and her visitors left the motor and came along the terrace to where she sat.

Now Freda felt she was in a desperate plight. In another moment the bag would be exposed, and she would be handed to Nurse in deep disgrace.

"I must tell a lie, I must, I must," she said frantically to herself.

"Get up at once, Freda. What are you doing?" said Mrs. Harrington sharply.

Freda looked up with agonised eyes.

"I can't, Mums."

"Where are you hurt?"

Then the young soldier laughed out.

"She's sitting on eggs. We mustn't disturb her."

It was only too plain that she was sitting upon something, and her mother caught hold of her and lifted her up. Then Freda stood with scarlet cheeks and downcast eyes, and the bag itself was lifted up by her vexed mother.

"My little girls are always hatching mischief, not eggs," she said, with a forced laugh. "What in the world does this bag of food mean, Freda, and why should you try to hide it?"

"Never mind," said Lady Aline cheerfully, kissing the hot soft little cheeks, and becoming conscious that Freda's blue eyes were filling with tears. "You were in the middle of a lovely game when we disturbed you. I want you to come over and spend a day with me soon. I am having little Emmeline Broughton over. She is a close neighbour of yours. Do you know her?"

"Dreamikins?" asked Freda, forgetting her trouble at once. "Oh yes, we love her, and we love her uncle too."

"Ah!" said young Captain Cotteswode. "There you show your good taste! He's a great friend of mine, and that little elf of a niece leads him a nice dance sometimes."

Lady Aline laughed, and turned to Mrs. Harrington.

"Keep your chicks away from her, Helen, if you value your peace of mind! She took a drunken tramp to the village inn this morning and gave him two glasses of beer. He began to get quarrelsome, and then the Rector passed by, heard the row, and rescued the young lady. He could not convince her she had done wrong, for she said the man had told her he was thirsty, and the Bible told her to give him drink."

Daffy and Freda exchanged glances.

After a little more talk, Lady Aline and her son went back to their motor, and drove away. Then Mrs. Harrington turned to her little daughters.

"Now, what is the meaning of this?"

"Oh, Mums, there was a poor little hungry boy, and we were taking some scraps to him. Please let us do it. He is waiting down near that tree."

"But you mustn't encourage beggars, children. Does Nurse know about it? And why did you behave like that, Freda? I was ashamed of you. Don't you know you should never hide up anything? Doesn't Nurse teach you to be truthful and frank? I must speak to her about it."

"Oh, please, Mums, forgive me," said Freda humbly. "Don't tell Nurse, she scolds and scolds and scolds, and makes us out the wickedest children in the world, when we are really trying to be good."

"And, darling Mums, may we just give the bag to this poor boy? For it belongs to him, and we promised him," said Daffy coaxingly.

"Where is he?"

Freda pointed to the tree on the lawn.

Mrs. Harrington went towards it, the children following her. She spoke rather sharply when she saw the boy.

"Look here, you must go away at once. I will let my little daughters give you what they promised you, but I have told them it must never occur again, and this is the last time you come near the Hall. Do you quite understand?"

The boy took the bag held out to him by Freda, then he touched his cap to Mrs. Harrington, and darted down the drive.

"Now then, children, run away to Nurse, and don't act so foolishly again."

Mrs. Harrington went back to the house. Freda and Daffy drew long breaths of relief.

"Mums won't tell Nurse. She always forgets to. I'm so glad the boy has got it. What an awful thing for Dreamikins to do! She said she was going to give him milk."

"I expect he told her he would rather have beer," said Daffy; "and we were going to see her, Freda, and we haven't gone."

"It's too late now. We'll go to-morrow. We've done more than she has, anyway."

"But he didn't like my water," said Daffy sorrowfully.

CHAPTER VI

The Strangers Arrive

THE little girls did not meet for several days. The weather was bad again, and kept them confined to the house. Dreamikins missed Freda and Daffy as much as they missed her. She had been very quiet and contrite after her visit to the public-house. When Fibo asked her how she came to think of such a thing, she looked at him sweetly and gravely.

"It was Cherubine who ercited me to do it. And you read it to me yourself, Fibo. I can say the verse: 'I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink.' He told me he was thirsty, and he said beer was the only thing that did him good. He doesn't like milk or water. So I gave him drink; and when he wanted another glass, I paid for it; and I had no more money, and when he wanted more he got into a bad temper because he couldn't have it. Mr. Temple seemed to think me wicked. I'm not, am I? God understands quite well, and if Cherubine told me to do it, it must be good."

"I'm beginning to be doubtful about Cherubine," said Fibo, looking at his small niece with perplexity in his eyes. "I think you had better consult me first, next time she tells you to do risky things."

"Oh, but she wouldn't like that at all, at all," said Dreamikins hastily. "She would think it very rude of me, if I told you things she tells me; and you mustn't forget where she comes from, Fibo dear."

Fibo took this rebuke in silence, and Dreamikins moved about with great dignity for the next half-hour. Then she forgot all about it, and chased Grinders round and round the lawn till they were both exhausted.

Two days afterwards she was allowed to go to the post office by herself and post a letter for her uncle. On the way back she saw a young man leaning against his bicycle, talking to the landlord of the "Blue Boar." And as she was passing him, she heard him say:

"I'm sorry you can't put me up. I'm a stranger in these parts, and I wanted to stay the night here."

A stranger! Dreamikins' heart beat fast. She stood still in the road considering; but she never considered very long. The delightful possibility before her drove everything else out of her head. She watched the young man get upon his bicycle with rather a weary air, and then, as he rode towards her, she stepped into the middle of the road and held up her small hand authoritatively.

The young man swerved, jumped off his cycle, and said rather sharply:

"Do you want to be run over, little girl? What are you doing?"

"I'm stopping you. The policemen do it like that at Brighton."

"But what are you stopping me for?"

Dreamikins came very close to him, and laid hold of his coat sleeve.

"I've got a bed ready for you," she said, in an eager whisper, "and I've sticked pins in the cushion, and Fibo let me do it, and Cherubine and me will be very happy if you comes to-night, and please come along now."

The young man looked quite bewildered.

Did this child belong to some people who let lodgings? he wondered. If so, he was in luck's way. He recklessly determined to follow her.

"I want to sleep here to-night," he said. "I've done nearly forty miles to-day, and am dead beat."

"And you're a stranger," said Dreamikins softly. Then she tucked her hand into his.

"I've been expecking and expecking till I'm worn out."

"Did you expect me?"

"Well, no, not exackly. You're rather dusty, but you're not in rags. It doesn't say what the stranger is to be like, but I'm sure you'll do."

When she came to her uncle's house the young man hesitated, and felt uncomfortable. But she led him into the garden in joyful triumph, and took him straight up to her uncle's invalid chair.

"Fibo dear, he's comed! The stranger has comed! And his room is quite, quite ready. And I've bringed him to you, so that it may be all right."

Fibo turned. The young man bowed.

"I'm a parson on a holiday," he said, "and the inn was full, and they couldn't put me up, and this little girl assured me I should get a bed here. She wouldn't take a No from me, so I came along. My name is George Ferrers. I'm a curate in Birmingham."

Fibo held out his hand.

"I believe you've done right to come," he said, "and I don't wonder my pixie led you here. Her soul is in the adventure."

"What does it mean?" asked George Ferrers.

He looked at Dreamikins as he spoke, and she danced up and down in ecstasy, her face radiant with smiles.

"Explain it, Dreamikins," said her uncle.

Then Dreamikins stood still, and the sweet reverent look came into her face.

"It's just instead of having Jesus Christ to sleep with us," she said. "We can't have Him. I should burst with joy if I could; but He told us if we got any stranger instead of Him, it would do, and so you've come."

Then George Ferrers' eyes shone with a glad light. He understood.

"I am not worthy," he said.

There was silence for a moment. Then Fibo said heartily:

"You'll be doing us a kindness if you stay. I can't get about, and my visitors are few and far between. Dreamikins shall take you to our spare room; and make yourself at home! I dine at eight."

"I'm ever so grateful," George Ferrers answered, and then Dreamikins led him away.

She was very excited, made Clara bring some hot water, and showed him the soap she had put in the soap-dish, the pins in the pincushion, the bunch of flowers in the vase on the dressing-table. She even turned back the sheet and blankets of the bed to show him his pillows.

"I maded the bed with Clara, and she laughed all the time; and I dust the room every day with my own duster, so I know it's ready. Do you like it? Do you think it's nice?"

"I think it's just perfect," said the young man enthusiastically, and when Dreamikins at last left him, she went back to her uncle with a shining face.

"I haven't made a mistake this time, have I, Fibo? Cherubine told God how dreadfully mis'able I was over the beer that man drinked; and so God planned it all out for me to-day. Wasn't it good and sweet of Him!"

What could Fibo say? He looked very grave.

"You did quite right in bringing him straight to me, Dreamikins. You won't make mistakes if you always do that."

Whilst Dreamikins was entertaining her guest, Freda and Daffy were busy preparing for theirs. They had chosen a bedroom leading out upon a balcony in a disused wing of the house, and they had stolen into this room at different times, bringing treasures of all sorts—soap, bits of candles, towels from other rooms—and now their great difficulty was sheets and pillow-cases.

"It isn't fair," grumbled Freda; "Dreamikins has only to say, and she gets at once. Everybody is against us in this house. Even Jane won't give us matches. And he must have matches."

"I'll get some matches from Nellie," said Daffy, "and we'll wait till the stranger is really coming, and then we will give him our sheets and pillow-cases and go without ourselves. That will be very good of us, I'm sure, because I hate blankets, they tickle so!"

Every day they looked out for strangers, but none seemed to come their way. When the weather grew fine again, they thought out a plan, and that was to go down to the park wall which bordered the road. There was a part of it lower than the rest, and a tree grew close to it. Freda and Daffy were able to climb this tree and then step on to the wall. They sat here patiently, watching everybody who went along the road. Once or twice tired-looking men with knapsacks on their shoulders had passed them, but they had not the courage to speak to them or stop them. At last, one afternoon when they were sitting there an old man came along, and sat down to rest in the hedge on the opposite side of the road.

"He's a tramp and a stranger," said Freda breathlessly; "just the one!"

"Yes," assented Daffy; "we must make haste and ask him."

So Freda called out in her high clear voice:

"Good afternoon, old man; we're very glad to see you. Would you like to sleep at our house this evening? You look very tired."

The tramp looked across at them in surprise. He was not a nice-looking man. He had a thin grey beard and little cunning eyes. His hat had once been a soft black felt, now it was battered and green. He wore a dark green handkerchief round his throat. His coat was out-at-elbows, his trousers were patched at the knees, and frayed out and ragged at the hems.

"Afternoon, Missy!" he said, and his voice was the only pleasant part about him. It was cheery and brisk.

"I'm for having a nap where I am," he said.

"But where are you going to sleep to-night?" asked Daffy.

"I reckon at Doulton Union if I can walk it; but I've blistered me heel and have to go slow. And I've a thirst which rages. Mow I wonder if you've a copper to spare a tired thirsty old man?"

"We haven't any money," said Freda, in a crestfallen voice, "but we've a beautiful bedroom ready for you, and towels, and soap, and candles, and matches, and the bed will be ready for you if you say you'll come. Daffy and me are looking out for a stranger. It's in the Bible that we're to do it, and so we've got it ready."

"I'll tell you how to find the room," said Daffy, bending over from her perch in rather a dangerous fashion. "You come in at the park gates, and go round by the shrubbery to the part of the house that is shut up. The blinds are all down, and there's a balcony outside one window and steps up to it. We'll leave the window unlocked, and you can creep in when dark. Will you come?"

"Do come!" pleaded Freda. "If we can, we'll put some food inside, because you'll be wanting some supper."

"Well," said the old man slowly, "it wants turnin' over in my mind, so it do! I may step up to-night and I mayn't!"

"Oh, do promise us you will! It's no good getting your bed ready if you don't."

"Who be livin' at your house? Is the master at home?"

"Dad used to be the master, but he is dead, and Nurse says Bertie is the master now, and he's written a paper to say we can do it. Mums and Nurse and us and all the servants live there."

There was silence, then the old man looked up at them, and his small eyes twinkled.

"You go 'long with you, and put some drink as well as mate in that there bedroom, and old John Cubbs will thank 'ee kindly."

"Then you'll be there to-night?" asked Freda breathlessly.

"Ay, I reckon I may."

The children got back to the tree and climbed down.

"It seems too good to be true," said Daffy breathlessly. "Now what must we do, Freda?"

"We can't take our sheets till after we're in bed to-night; Jane would miss them; but we can get some food for him. Nellie is our only hope."

So they made their way to the back door and lay in wait for Nellie. They dared not go in. The old cook would have no children in her kitchen at any time.

When Nellie came out and heard their request, she shook her head.

"Now who's it for this time? You mustn't bring beggars about the place."

"But he's in the road now," said Freda. "Do, Nellie, just this once. He's a poor old man; think if he was your grandfather!"

Nellie tossed her head.

"My grandfeyther is a respectable man. He wouldn't be beggin' from children like you."

"Oh, he didn't beg, at least not before we spoke to him. Just a nice plate of scraps, Nellie; the best that you can spare."

Nellie went indoors. She came out again very soon with a basin in her hand.

"There, take it. The basin is cracked, so it won't be missed; but this is the very last time, Miss Freda."

The children hurried away with their basin. They smuggled it into the house, and softly crept along the passages till they came to their empty room. Once inside, they breathed more freely.

"I feel as if we're being rather sly," said Freda, "but it's Nurse who makes us so. If we hadn't a nurse we wouldn't be sly."

"But do you think Mums would like it?" questioned Daffy.

"I think if she had time to sit still till we explained she would understand. Jesus Christ wouldn't have told people they ought to do it if it wasn't right. He says distinctly: 'I was a stranger, and ye took Me in.' This old man is a stranger and we're going to take him in."

"Yes," said Daffy; "it must be right."

They looked round the room. Everything seemed ready. Freda cautiously unlocked the big French window, which led out upon the balcony.

"Suppose he doesn't stay in his bedroom," suggested Daffy, "and comes walking over the house, and Nurse met him, or Mums did, what would they say?"

"He wouldn't be likely to walk over the house in the middle of the night. He would want to sleep. But the key is on the passage side of the door; we would lock him in."

"Yes; he could get out and in by the window. Freda, will he stay more than one night?"

"I hope not. I never thought of that. Nellie won't give us another basin of food."

"She hasn't given him anything to drink."

"He must drink water out of the water-bottle. We filled it."

"The most difficult thing is to get our sheets on his bed."

"Oh, we'll do it," said Freda airily. "We'll manage it when Nurse goes down for her supper. She always has it in the housekeeper's room."

They walked round the room. The bed was a big one; there was a chintz-covered couch at the foot of it, and a big easy-chair. A writing-table was in one corner and a bookcase in the other. The carpet was thick and soft to tread upon. Damask curtains hung over the window.

"I'm sure he'll find it very comfortable," said Daffy, smelling the soap on the washing-stand.

"I wonder if he's got a hairbrush and toothbrush and all he wants?"

"Oh yes, he had a bundle. We'll put his basin on the writing-table. It has got a mutton chop in it, and some cold potatoes, and a piece of bacon, and then there's some rice pudding, and a dry bit of cake, and a piece of jam roll. But it's all mixed up. It must taste very nasty."

Freda had been carefully examining the contents of the basin. Now she placed it on the table, and then she and Daffy slipped out of the room.

"I won't lock the door till we've got the sheets in," she said.

They spent the rest of the day in anxiously thinking about the stranger's coming. When bedtime came, Daffy was almost glad.

"It seems quite a year since we saw the stranger," she said. "I do hope he'll manage to get in all right."

The little girls slept in two beds side by side in one night-nursery, Nurse and Bertie slept in the other; and the two rooms opened into each other, and the door between them was never shut.

When they were in bed Nurse left them, and went back to the day-nursery, where she and Jane sat and worked or read. It was still daylight, though the blinds were down, and directly they were left alone Freda set to work.

"We must leave our top sheets in case anybody sees. You take off your bottom one quick, Daffy, and I'll take off mine, and we must fold them up very small, and put the pillow-cases inside. There are two pillows to be covered, so we must have both of ours."

This was done after some trouble in folding them up. Then they crept back into bed again, each hugging her sheet, and waited to hear Nurse go downstairs. The time seemed long. Would she never go?

CHAPTER VII

Freda and Daffy in Trouble

DAFFY was getting sleepy. Suddenly Freda called to her in an excited whisper:

"She's gone, and Jane went first. Come on, and don't make a noise."

Softly they sped along the passage, down some stairs to another long passage, through a green baize door, past several rooms, and at last they came to the right one.

"He may be here already," said Daffy fearfully. "I'm a little afraid."

"He won't come till he wants a bed," said Freda reassuringly; "and grown-up people never go to bed till it's quite dark."

They found the room empty, but Daffy kept glancing out of the window, with her heart beating fast. It was dusk in this big room. The creepers outside the window tapped against the window-panes, as if they were hands that wanted to come in.

She and Freda were not very clever at making up a bed, and when she pulled a corner of the sheet towards her, Freda pulled it away again. It seemed as if they could not get it smooth and straight.

Then an owl hooted outside the window, and Daffy gave a little scream.

Freda was hotly indignant with her.

"You're a coward, that's what you are! And you'll make Nurse come down upon us, if you don't take care. I wish you weren't so clumsy! Do be quick! I think I hear him coming!"

That quickened Daffy. She did not want to see that dirty ugly old man coming into the dusky room. The pillows were thumped into their cases, the blankets and coverlet drawn tight over the big bed and tucked under the mattress, then Daffy slipped out of the room, thankful the task was over. Freda locked the door and took the key to bed with her; even her bold heart did not wish to have the old man prowling about over the house in the middle of the night.

They snuggled down into their beds again, rejoicing that they had not been seen by any one. Daffy dropped off to sleep quickly in spite of her rough blanket. Freda lay still with wide awake eyes. She trembled when, later on, Nurse came into the room with candle in hand. She stood over the children's beds for an instant, and Freda breathed quickly. Would she see there was no sheet?

But Nurse passed on, muttering to herself as she sometimes did, and Freda caught the words:

"Poor fatherless children, and their mother bored at having to think about them!"

Then Freda burrowed her head into her pillow, and sleep soon came to her.

The next morning was bright and sunny. But there was no sunshine in the nurseries, for Nurse had quickly discovered the absence of pillow-cases and sheets, and her wrath was great. Jane was called, and the children questioned, but Freda and Daffy maintained a stubborn silence.

Nurse took hold of Freda by the shoulders and shook her.

"Not one morsel of breakfast shall you have until you've told me what you've done with your sheet, you naughty child!"

Then Freda lost her temper. She flung the key down on the floor in front of Nurse.

"Go and find out for yourself; I shan't tell you! I hate you!"

And even mild-tempered Daffy echoed: "Yes, go and find them, Nurse. You always call us naughty before you know!"

Nurse seized the key.

"Jane, sit them on those chairs till I come back."

The little culprits were taken to the day-nursery. Jane seated Bertie at the breakfast-table, then went to fetch the porridge.

"Freda, do you think she'll find him in bed?" whispered Daffy from her high-backed chair.

"I don't care if she does," said Freda, with hot angry cheeks. "I hope he'll kick her."

Nurse was a long time coming back. They heard her hasty steps along the passage, and voices and doors opening and shutting. Then they heard their mother's voice calling to Purling, and their hearts quaked and thumped.

"They've found him asleep," said Daffy, "and now they're wondering who he is. Oh, Freda, I do wish we hadn't done it."

Shortly afterwards the door opened and Jane came in with the porridge. She looked very excited. Behind her was Nurse, and their mother, with her hair braided down her back, and clad in her blue silk dressing-gown.

"Here they are, ma'am, and it beats me how they dare to do such things! There's nothing they won't be up to, but when it comes to harbouring thieves and vagabonds, then I say nothing but a sound whipping will do them any good!"

"Freda and Daffy, get down from those chairs. Now what do you know about this? Somebody has been sleeping in one of our spare rooms; he has left this behind him, but taken away a good many things that did not belong to him. The gardener says he met an old tramp coming down from the house at six o'clock this morning, and he told him he had been sleeping at the house as a guest!"

Mrs. Harrington held out a piece of notepaper, evidently a sheet that was on the writing-table, for it bore the Harrington crest upon it, and the address, "The Hall, Douglas Cross."

In shaky writing across it, were these words:

"My thanks to the yong ladies. A very good nite."

Freda looked at Daffy, and Daffy looked at Freda.

"Speak," said their mother sharply. "What have you been doing?"

"May we tell you alone, Mums?" said Freda. "Nurse doesn't understand. We did get the bedroom ready for him, and told him how to get to it, but—"

"There, ma'am," said Nurse angrily. "Now what do you think of that? They're beyond me altogether! It's a mercy we were not all murdered in our beds!"

"You had better give them their breakfasts and send them to me. I must get to the bottom of it. Those Sheffield plate candlesticks and ivory trinket boxes are a real loss. I shall have to put it into the hands of the police."

Mrs. Harrington left the room as she spoke, and then ensued a very bad half-hour for Freda and Daffy. Nurse could scold like nobody else. They were only allowed dry bread for their breakfast, and were not allowed to speak to one another. When they were sent to their mother's room, Freda carried a little box under her arm; she was defiant, Daffy indifferent. Nurse's scoldings had always that effect on them.

"Mums won't scold like Nurse; we couldn't hear anything worse," Daffy said, as they walked along the passages to their mother's room.

Mrs. Harrington was sitting by her open window having her breakfast; she always took it in her bedroom. She never had understood her little daughters. She disliked finding fault with any one, and the loss of her husband had affected her so deeply that she felt nothing else mattered. Now she looked at them with a perplexed frown upon her face.

"Come in, and tell me quietly why you have been behaving in this extraordinary way."

Freda was only too ready to be spokeswoman.

She opened her box, and produced a slip of paper which she laid upon her mother's lap.

"You see, Mums dear, Bertie gave us the room. It belongs to him now, doesn't it? And Daffy and me are trying to be good and to do what the Bible tells us. And you know when Jesus Christ will stand at the door of heaven to let everybody in, He'll ask us if we've taken a stranger in, and given drink and food to the hungry and thirsty, and a lot of other things. If we haven't done it, we shall have to be goats, and if we have, we are sheep. And the sheep go inside heaven and the goats are shut out. And Daffy and me want to be the sheep."

Her mother looked at her gravely.

"I see. You explain very clearly. Go on!"

"Well, then, you see we had to find a stranger to take in, and an old man passed along the road, and we were sitting on the wall, and we asked him if he would like to have a bed for the night. We didn't know he was a wicked thief, and we told him how to get to the bedroom up the steps to the balcony, and Daffy and me couldn't get any sheets for him, so we took one of ours, and that's why Nurse found it out and was so angry."

Mrs. Harrington was looking at the paper upon her lap. She read it out aloud:

"I give to Freda and Daffy one of my bedrooms in this house for somebody that God wants to stay here.

"BERTIE HARRINGTON."

"Now who told you that this house belonged to Bertie?"

"Long ago," said Daffy softly, "Nurse told us that Bertie was much more important than us, because, if Daddy died, this house would belong to him."

"You haven't waited long to take advantage of your father's death," said Mrs. Harrington, rather bitterly.

Freda and Daffy hung their heads in shame.

"Now pay attention to me," their mother continued, in her slow quiet tones; "this house does not belong to Bertie till he is twenty-five years old. It belongs to me till then, and I forbid you to ask any one to stay in it unless you have my permission. Until you understand the Bible better, you are not to act out its precepts without asking grown-up people if it is right for you to do so. I believe there is a verse about heaping coals of fire on your enemy's head. Do you think you ought to do that?"

"I feel I would like to do it to Nurse," said Freda, with emphasis. In imagination she saw Nurse's cap and hair in flames, and considered it would serve her right.

"Exactly. You don't understand that a great deal of the Bible is figurative language."

"What is that, Mums?"

"Oh, I can't explain," said Mrs. Harrington, yawning. Then she roused herself to speak sternly. "That old tramp decamped with a good many valuable articles of ours. You put temptation in his way, and if the door had not been locked outside, he would have stolen much more. Who did that?"

"I locked the door, Mums," said Freda.

There was silence.

"Well, for children, I suppose you managed as wisely as you could. Now go back to Nurse, she will know how to punish you. And never do such a thing again. I thought I told you not to encourage beggars when I sent that boy away the other day."

"Nurse will be so fearfully angry," said Daffy.

"You deserve her to be. It was doing it secretly that must be punished. I will not have you grow up deceitful children."

"But Nurse thinks everything wicked," wailed Freda; "she wants us to have no fun at all."

"You don't want fun when your father lies dead in a foreign land," said Mrs. Harrington sharply.

Then she relented as she saw the forlorn look on the little girls' faces.

"There's right fun and wrong fun, and the Bible ought not to be turned into fun. Never. Now go back to the nursery."

Freda and Daffy crept out of their mother's room. Nurse was waiting for them, and did what she very seldom did now, she gave them each a sound whipping, and put them to bed.

And Freda and Daffy were two very unhappy little girls for all that day. They felt that from the grown-up people's eyes they had behaved badly; but they wondered if God looked down from heaven and understood better than Nurse.

"We'll ask Dreamikins about it," said Daffy; "but she never seems to get punished for anything."

"That old stranger ought to be punished, not us," said Freda. "We gave him a nice bed and food, and he stole Mum's candlesticks and other things."

"Nurse makes out the bed and the food weren't ours to give him," said Daffy. "She treats us as if we're thieves."

"Perhaps we are," said Freda thoughtfully.

Her busy brain was hard at work. She felt shaken in her self-confidence.

It was two or three days later that Fibo asked them to tea, and though Nurse was almost against their going, their mother said they might do so.

Dreamikins greeted them with her usual joyous welcome.

"Cherubine and me have been longing to see you. I've had a beautiful stranger staying in my bed, and Fibo liked him so much he stayed two days."

"Oh!" groaned Freda. "Everything is all right with you. We took in a stranger who was a thief, and Nurse hardly thinks us out of disgrace yet, though it was days and days ago!"

They began to compare their experiences, and then somehow or other they found themselves pouring it all out to Fibo, and Daffy asked him when he had heard all:

"Now do you think we were any wickeder than Dreamikins? What's the difference between us?"

"Why," said Dreamikins, "I've got an A.M. for my uncle, and you have a H.D. for your nurse. That's what makes the difference."

"Now look here," said Fibo, rousing himself, as he saw Freda's and Daffy's anxious faces. "I think I must give you all three a good talking to, because none of you are quite as wise yet as we grown-up people. Astonishing, isn't it? Now come and sit down, and we'll be thoroughly comfortable before I begin."

The little girls sat in a circle upon the grass round Fibo's chair, then Dreamikins insisted upon having Grinder and Drab.

"It'll do them good to hear you, Fibo dear, and after we've all listened hard, you must give us one choc each for good behaviour. Cherubine is going to listen too. I know she'll say 'I told you so!' when she hears you."

"Now then, here we go. First of all, I must remind you that those words were addressed to grown-up people, not to children. If you look in your Bibles, our Lord was speaking to His disciples."

"Oh, Fibo dear," said Dreamikins reproachfully, "can't children be disciples?"

"Yes, they can, but they are not able to do everything that grown-up people do. And this taking in of strangers is not for them, because they don't own a house or a bedroom; nor is food even, if taken from the kitchen, theirs to give, as B.B. and E.E. know."

"But," said Freda eagerly, "we did think the house and bedroom belonged to Bertie; Nurse said it did, and we got him to give it to us, only Mums says it belongs to her."

"Yes; you see, you made a mistake; that's where you showed you were not quite wise enough to manage such a big undertaking. The fact is, though none of you like to hear it, you mustn't act on your own. Ask advice of older people."

"I always ask Cherubine," said Dreamikins, smiling.

"Yes, but you would do better to ask me," said Fibo.

Dreamikins put her head on one side, then she held up one small finger. "Hush, Fibo, Cherubine is speaking."

Fibo was quiet at once, but he looked straight at his small niece with rather grave eyes, and she gave a little wriggle.

"Oh well, Fibo, she says she'll tell me to ask you sometimes, and you know I did ask you about the room, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did, but it was just a chance you didn't bring along a thief into the house. You wouldn't have known the difference. Now I'll tell you a beautiful way you can carry out our Lord's wishes. What is it He wants you to do?"

"To give drink to the thirsty and feed the hungry," said Daffy.

"To take strangers in and visit the sick," said Freda.

"And give clothes to the naked and visit in prison," said Dreamikins.

"Very well. Now I know several good people who take ragged children in; they feed and clothe them and give them houseroom, and nurse them when they're sick, but they can't do this without money. Now, if you have a collecting box, and put some of your loose pennies in, I will send up the box to them when full, and then you will be feeding these children, and clothing them, and taking them in as strangers with your money."

"Oh, but that would be so dull, Fibo dear," said Dreamikins.

The children's dismayed faces made Fibo laugh.

"And that wouldn't do it all; it wouldn't be visiting in prison," said Freda.

"Well, I know people who visit in prison, and that can't be done without money; you could have a box for that. You see, if you really feel you can't wait till you're grown-up to do these things, you can get some people to do it for you; that's what I mean."

"It isn't a bit the same," said Dreamikins. "And lots of children don't grow up; you know they don't; and then we shall be goats."

Fibo looked at his niece with a funny little smile, then he said suddenly:

"Perhaps you could do one or two of the things now, without waiting till you turn into wiseheads."

"Oh, do tell us," cried Freda and Daffy together.

"I think you could go and visit somebody sick. Mrs. Daw was telling me to-day of a dear old body who is in bed with very bad rheumatism. She used to be our laundress. She lives quite alone, and would be cheered up if you went to see her."

Dreamikins clapped her hands; but Freda and Daffy looked unhappy.

"Nurse wouldn't let us. She never will let us do a single nice thing."

"Oh, we'll manage Nurse. I'll tackle her."

"Will you really?"

Hope sprang up in their hearts.

"And what else?" they asked.

"I'm only a clumsy man, but I believe you can all use the needle. If we could have a little sewing party one day in the week, you could make clothes for some poor little kids who have none to wear, and I would see that they got them all right. But we should have to get Annette to cut the clothes out, and show you how to do them. I'm no good at that sort of thing."

"We don't like sewing," said Dreamikins, looking at her little friends; and Freda and Daffy both agreed with her.

"Of course, if you only want to do what you like—" began Fibo.

"We'll do it, Fibo dear, only you must tell us some most erciting stories all the time we work, and we must have an extry good tea after, to make up."

"I don't know that you need rewarding for doing good," said Fibo quietly.

"No, that we'll get inside heaven," said Dreamikins thoughtfully. "Perhaps we might try those two things."

"Yes," said Freda decidedly; "if Nurse lets Daffy and me do it, we will."

"And we can ask Mums," suggested Daffy.

Then they all brightened up, and Fibo said he wouldn't talk any more, not till next time; and then the little girls had a romp in the garden together till tea came, and they enjoyed themselves as they always did, and Freda and Daffy went home comforted.

"I always like," said Freda, "to feel there's something in front of us; and now there is."

CHAPTER VIII

A Day of Naughtiness

IT was only a few days after this that Freda and Daffy were playing in the garden, when Dreamikins suddenly appeared before them. She had no hat on; her curls were flying in the wind, her cheeks were hot, and her blue eyes dancing with mischief and excitement. Generally she was a dainty little person, and certainly kept her frocks much cleaner than Freda or Daffy. But now her white frock was splashed and stained with mud, and her white socks were torn and dirty.

"What's the matter?" asked Daffy.

Dreamikins danced up and down before them.

"I'm tarred out with Cherubine. I slapped her and sent her back to heaven. I'm tarred of being good, and I'm having a real wicked day. I felt tied up too tight, and now I'm stretching myself, or I really think I shall burst!"

Freda's eyes gleamed.

"Do tell us what you've been doing."

Dreamikins proceeded to give an account of her day in rapid breathless tones.

"It was because I woked too early, and I couldn't stay still in bed, and Cherubine said I oughted to, and all of a sudden I felt I'd had enough of her, and I tolded her so; and of course she didn't like it, and I said she was no fun no longer, I was tarred of her; and then she wouldn't go, so I slapped her, and of course that sent her flying away like lightning!"

"But how could you slap her?" questioned Daffy.

"Why, of course, I slapped on my chest just where she snuggles down next my heart."

Then Dreamikins paused in her dancing, and her eyes grew big.

"It's a awfully wicked thing to slap a angel!"

"I should think it was," said Freda. "I don't believe you did it. Go on; what did you do next?"

"I runned downstairs, and out into the garden in my nightie. I turned on all the water-taps everywhere and let them run, and then I kicked off my shoes and paddled where there was pools. Then Carrie came out of doors and tried to catch me, and I threwed stones at her, but she didn't care; and then she catched me, and I kicked her, and she didn't care; and then he carried me upstairs, and Annette was there to scold me!"

"What else?"

"Oh, I just went on and on. I threwed the soap out of the window, and lots of things besides, and when I was dressed I went downstairs and shut Drab into the larder, and mixed up some jam and butter together when Mrs. Daw wasn't looking. And when I'd finished breakfus, I just ran all over the house, and did all the mischief I ever could. I untidied all the tidy places, and I emptied all the boxes and drawers out on the floors, and I upset the ink. And then Fibo sent from his room for me, and I wouldn't go, and then I crawled through the door into your park, and I've been climbing trees, and catching tadpoles in the ditches, and I chased the sheeps, and then I comed off here. And now, what shall we do? Something really wicked it must be. I'm never going to be good again!"

"Then you'll never go to see that old sick woman," said Daffy.

"No, never, never!"

Dreamikins shook her curls defiantly.

"I'm so joyful not to have Cherubine. She got so tarsome, and I feel quite light and empty without her. Have you got any chickens? I opened our gate and let them run all over the flowers before I came away. Let's go and do something!"

Freda and Daffy looked at each other. They hardly knew this Dreamikins. She seemed to have turned into a little imp.

"You forget we have Nurse," said Freda soberly.

"Let's put out our tongues at her," suggested Dreamikins.

But neither Freda nor Daffy would allow this, nor would they agree to go to the poultry yard and work havoc there. Then Dreamikins seized hold of Bertie, who was playing on the lawn by himself.

"I know what we'll do," she said; "we'll make Bertie into a Red Indian. Have you any paints?"

"Yes," said Freda delightedly, "in our paint-boxes. I'll go and get some."

Off she ran to the house; then Daffy and Dreamikins took Bertie off to a secluded corner of the flower-garden where there was an empty shed used by the gardener for his tools and flowerpots. Unfortunately, upon a shelf Dreamikins found some green paint. She seized upon it.

"Oh, we'll make him a green Indian. Let's undress him."

But Freda, coming back, wouldn't allow this.

"You can take off his jacket and knicks, but he would take cold if he hadn't something on."

She and Daffy eagerly watched Dreamikins as she dabbed Bertie with spots of green paint all over his body. He was quite willing to be painted. His hair, his cheeks, his fat chubby arms and legs, were liberally sprinkled with the paint. His little vest was striped with it. The children shrieked with laughter when they saw how funny he looked. And then Bertie grew excited, and danced up and down, and in the middle of it Nurse swept down upon them. She had heard their laughter and screams, and Freda and Daffy shrank into a corner of the shed, thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Not so Dreamikins. She waved her paint brush in front of Nurse, and besprinkled her white cotton dress with paint.

"He's a green Indian, and I'll make you one too," she cried, and then, as Nurse furiously laid hands upon her, Dreamikins fled out of her reach, and raced across the lawn, singing as she went:

"There was a Haughty Dragon,
Her name was Mrs. Nurse!
She was a horrid woman,
She couldn't well be worse."

By this time Dreamikins was feeling rather tired, so she crept into her uncle's garden again by the little door, and half an hour after, Annette found her fast asleep in a wheelbarrow which had some freshly mown grass in it.

Annette carried her up to bed and let her sleep there till two o'clock, when she woke her up and gave her some dinner.

Dreamikins ate her dinner silently. Her cheeks were flushed with sleep, and Annette sat by the window sewing, and wisely said nothing to her.

After she had finished her meal, she washed and dressed her in a fresh white frock.

"Now we'll go out for a walk," said Annette..

"Oh no, we won't," said Dreamikins. "I'm not going to do anything good to-day. I'm being wicked."

Annette looked helplessly at her charge.

"Your good uncle be very grieved, and he have a bad head to-day, and he lying down now. Will you go for to wake him and give him more pain?"

"I aren't going near Fibo, not yet I aren't. I'll take a walk by myself, Annette, and if you follow me I'll throw stones at you."

Dreamikins put on her hat, but would not look at her gloves; she threw those into a basin of water, and laughed at Annette's shocked face when she did so.

Then she sallied forth; but Annette secretly followed her. She said to Mrs. Daw as she was leaving the house:

"Miss Emmeline have not been like this for long long time. It is sad how evil she can behave, but her good uncle be the one to cure her, only she will not go to him."

Dreamikins marched on without looking behind her, till she came to the village. Then she turned her head, and saw Annette in the distance. She dashed round the corner of the street, and, seeing a cart and horse standing outside a house, in an instant sprang up into it, and hid herself under the seat, pulling an old rug entirely over her. No one saw her do it, and presently the carter came out and drove off. Annette was wildly hunting about for her little charge, and, after a fruitless search, went home, hoping that she would have arrived there before her.

Dreamikins lay still for a long time.

"I'm going a journey," she asserted to herself, "and I'll get away from everybody; and a good thing too!"

But she soon began to fidget, and at last, in sheer mischief, she put out her hand and sharply pinched the carter in the leg. He did not feel it at first; then he put down his great hand and came in contact with hers. In another minute he had dragged away the rug, and was staring at his passenger with astonished eyes.

"Well, I'm blest!" was all he could say.

And Dreamikins crept out, and laughed and clapped her hands.

"You didn't know I was there, did you, now? I'm having a nice drive."

"But where do 'ee come from, little Missy?"

The good man had pulled up his horse, and was staring at her in a puzzled fashion; but Dreamikins seized hold of his whip and whipped the horse so smartly that he trotted on.

"YOU DIDN'T KNOW I WAS THERE; DID YOU?"

"Let me have the reins," she said; "now, do let me. I want to drive hunderds of miles away, and lose myself the other side of the world."

"What be your name, and where do you come from?" asked the carter.

"I've runned away, and I shan't tell you nothing about me."

He rubbed his head, looked back along the road, which seemed empty for a long way behind them, then seized his reins, which were already in Dreamikins' hands, and drove rapidly on.

"I'd best take her to the Missus. Her 'll know what to do with her."

Then Dreamikins began to chatter in her gay, inconsequent fashion, and the man listened to her in great bewilderment, and was very relieved when at last they arrived at a big farmhouse. He drove into the yard, and in a moment or two there was quite a little crowd round them—his wife, two farm-hands, the farmer and his wife, and two maid-servants. Dreamikins was taken possession of by Mrs. Dufty, the farmer's wife.

"Come along, my pretty! Wherever did you come from? Hid in the cart, did you? Oh, fie! And what will your daddy and mummy say?"

"They don't know nothing about me," said Dreamikins. "I'm just having a holiday to-day, with nobody to say 'No' to me."

"But where do you live, my lovie?"

Dreamikins turned up her blue eyes to Mrs. Dufty reflectively.

"Well, I lives at Brighton, but I stays with Fibo, and I wouldn't ask where he lives if I were you, because I aren't going to tell you."

Then she added with guile:

"I do feel very thirsty; do you think you'd like to give me some milk?"

"Bless your little heart, come along in, and after you've had some tea you'll tell us pretty where you've come from!"

Dreamikins shook her curls from side to side, but followed the farmer's wife into a comfortable kitchen. She was soon sitting up at the table with them, for their tea was already waiting. And Dreamikins thoroughly enjoyed a slice of bread and cream with jam, and a cup of strong tea with three lumps of sugar in it.

"Fibo doesn't like me to drink tea," she said, with a satisfied sigh, as she emptied her first cup and asked for another; "but as I'm being wicked to-day it doesn't matter."

"Oh, fie!" said good-natured Mrs. Dufty, who had no children herself, though she loved them. "Little ladies like you aren't wicked, I'm sure."

"But I are," said Dreamikins, whose grammar got very bad when she was excited. "I've runned away, and if you'll keep me a few days I'll be very much obliged. Why—"

Here she stopped, gazed gravely at the farmer and his wife, then, planting her elbows on the table, rested her chin in her hands and smiled sweetly upon them.

"Do you know what you'll be doing if you take me and give me a bed to-night? You'll be doing what Jesus said we must do if we love Him; you'll be feeding a stranger—that's me—instead of Him, but He counts it just the same, and He'll make you into His sheep and put you on His Right Hand in heaven. So you see I'd better stop, hadn't I?"

"Well, of all the darlings, you are the prize one!" said Mrs. Dufty, beaming upon her. "And dearly should I love to keep you, but think of your people, what a state o' mind they'll be in."

Dreamikins' eyes twinkled.

"Annette will be running all over the place, and shaking her hands; she always shakes her hands when she's fussing; and Fibo—well, I won't think about him, because I'm going to go on being wicked!"

She shut her lips firmly together, and gave a nod at Mrs. Dufty. There was a little defiance in the nod. And then the door opened and the carter's wife appeared.

"Please, mum, Annie says the young lady comes from the Dower House. Captain Arnold be her uncle. Annie's home is in the village, she says."

Dreamikins jumped down from her chair and stamped her foot on the floor.

"I don't care what Annie says, I aren't going back to-day."

"The poleece will put us in prison if we keeps you," said the farmer gravely, winking at his wife as he spoke.

"That will be lovely!" said Dreamikins, clapping her hands. "Then I'll come and see you. I want to see people in prison."

"Did you ever see such sperrit, John! Bless her little heart, I'd dearly like to keep her, but you'd best get the horse and trap round and drive her back at once. It's six miles; she could never walk it."

It was no good protesting; the farmer bestirred himself, but when the trap was at the door, and he came in to carry Dreamikins out, she threw her arms round Mrs. Dufty's neck, and clung to her convulsively with a bitter cry.

"I don't want to go home. I'll be good instead of wicked if you keep me just one night. I'm sure God wants you to. He's written it in the Bible."

"Look here, lovie, you shall come another day and see us, and p'raps stay the night if your uncle will let you. You go with John like a little lady now."

It was a tearful Dreamikins that sat perched on the farmer's knee in the trap. She really dreaded seeing her uncle, for she knew how naughty she had been. When home was reached, she was lifted down at the front door; but panic seized her, and the spirit of wickedness too. It was her last effort at defiance.

"I aren't going indoors! I'll run away again!"

She pushed open the gate that led out upon the lawn behind the house. Nobody was in the garden, and she raced down the path. She heard Annette's flying feet behind her, and then she tumbled—a garden roller was on the path. She fell over, clutched the handle of it, and brought the handle down with an awful crack on her leg. She screamed in agony, and poor little Dreamikins' wicked day was over; her leg lay twisted under her; and when she was picked up and carried into the house it was found that it was broken.

CHAPTER IX

A Little Invalid

THAT was a very confused and dreadful night to Dreamikins, and the next day was not much better. She was conscious of such pain as she never in her small life had experienced before. The doctor appeared almost directly, and the medicine he gave her seemed to make her so sleepy that she could hardly take in anything. When she was not asleep she was in great pain, and was not allowed to move her leg or get out of bed. Fibo came to see her in his wheeled chair, and talked to her in his happy comforting way. In a few days she began to feel better, and then she remembered things. Then one evening Annette came in great distress to Fibo.

"Oh, Monsieur, will you come to Miss Emmeline! She cry and cry in a peetiful way. I can no comfort bring her, and I do not understand the wherefore of her cry. It is not that the little leg hurts, so she says!"

So Fibo came and found the golden curly-haired head buried in the pillow, and the small shoulders shaking with sobs.

"Why, Dreamikins," he said, "are you washing your pillow with salt water? That will never do. What's the rub?"

Dreamikins raised her flushed tear-stained face and looked at her uncle.

"I'm miser-rub-bub-bubble!" she sobbed.

"So I see. What has happened?"

"I haven't said my prayers for years, and now when I want to say them God won't listen to me. He's gone away."

"That, I know, isn't true."

"Yes, it is."

Dreamikins mopped her face with her handkerchief, and spoke in her old assured tone.

"It's because of Cherubine, and I'm all alone; and there's nobody to take care of me when I sleeps, and anything might happen. Satan might come and sit on my pillow, and there would be nobody to frighten him away. God won't come near me, and I want to speak to Him badly."

"What do you want to say?"

"Oh, just to tell Him I'm sorry for all I did that day, and I'll never be so wicked again. But God left me; that's why I broked my leg. If Cherubine had been there she would have caught hold of that nasty old roller and not let it slip on me. I sent her away, and God hasn't sent me any angel since."

"If you speak to God now He'll hear you, Dreamikins. He is always ready to forgive us when we are really sorry."

"But I have speaked, and He won't answer. He's gone away."

Fibo hadn't known Dreamikins for so long without understanding her mind.

"Shut your eyes," he said; "I am going to speak to God about you. He is quite close to me."

Then Fibo prayed a short little prayer for his penitent little niece, and light began to dawn in Dreamikins' blue eyes.

"God, of course, listens to you, Fibo, you're so good. Does He say He will come back?"

"Yes; He is here. Now speak to Him yourself."

And then, with a great sigh, Dreamikins began her prayer. Fibo did not hear all she said, for she began to sob again, but after a little she looked up with a smile.

"He's comed back to me, and He's going to look after me to-night all His own Self."

Fibo left her. Dreamikins was just Dreamikins, and could never be altered. He understood why her mother said she was too difficult to manage.

The next day was a brighter one for everybody. Dreamikins had recovered her spirits with a bound. When Fibo came to see her, she was ready for a long talk. She went over in detail all the sins she had committed on that one black day.

"I can't think what made me," she said, with a shake of her curls; "but Cherubine had been aggerrating me for a long time. And even now, Fibo dear, I don't think I want her back. How would it be if I had another little angel for a change?—a boy this time. I wonder if he would be sent? But I expect Cherubine would tell him all about me, and then he wouldn't want to come."

"Look here, Dreamikins, we won't talk about angels now. I was rather ill that day when you ran amuck, but it mustn't happen again. You are getting too old for it, and if you don't try to keep yourself controlled now, you'll grow up such a horrible woman that no one will want to live with you."

"How horrible?" asked Dreamikins, with an eager gleam of interest in her eyes.

"I'll tell you about a man I knew who did much the same as you did. He had a dear little wife, and three sweet little children, and for months they would live happily together, and then suddenly he would, as his wife said, 'go on the burst.'"

"Oh, how did he do it?"

Fibo did not like the pleased expression in Dreamikins' eyes. His face got very stern and grave.

"He went to the first public-house he could get to, and then he got roaringly and disgustingly drunk. He would come home at night, and throw chairs at his wife, and smash them to pieces, and nearly kill her. The next day he would go off and drink again, and behave like a madman. He would generally end by fighting some ones and then would be taken off to the police station, and be locked up. Then, after a time, he would come home, and be good again—as good as gold—till he got tired of being good, and then would have another burst of drinking. And at last, in one of these wicked drunken fits, he went home and threw his dear little baby out of the window, and killed it; and then he kicked his wife downstairs, and she broke her neck. He was tried for murder, and was hanged."

"Oh, Fibo!" Dreamikins gave a shudder. "And will I get as bad as him?"

"The principle is the same," said Fibo gravely. "You get tired of being good, and you then have a real wicked day which you thoroughly enjoy. I've known one or two such days in your life before. It won't do, my Dreamikins; you must stop yourself before it's too late."

Dreamikins lay back on her cushions with soft dreamy eyes and the most angelic expression of face.

"You see, Fibo dear," she said at last, "it's best not to try to be too good, and then you don't get tired so quick!"

"Well, I must say I don't think I've ever found you too good."

"Haven't you really? But then you don't know what goes on inside me—Cherubine pulling me one way and Satan the other. Why, I'm nearly teared in two pieces."

Fibo began to laugh, and his lecture ended.

"You'll want all your goodness now," he said. "If I were you, I would have the little angel Patience to stay with me till you can run about again."

Dreamikins straightened herself in bed, and spoke with great dignity.

"I chooses my own angels, Fibo dear; and I should think Patience wasn't any fun at all."

So they left it, but the days were long and wearisome to Dreamikins; and as soon as she was well enough for visitors, Freda and Daffy were sent for to spend the afternoon with her.

The little friends met again with delight.

"We've never heard what happened after you ran away from us that day," said Freda. "Nurse was the whole afternoon cleaning the paint off Bertie; she was in an awful temper, and she said you should never come near us again. If Mums hadn't been at home, she wouldn't have let us come to-day. But Mums has been very kind; she let Daffy and me go by ourselves to see that old sick washerwoman. Jane knew her, and said she'd be glad to see us, and we've taken her some flowers, and a bun, and a packet of cocoa we bought with our own money. And she's a dear old woman, and tells us stories about when she was a little girl and went to a Dame's school. A Dame is a woman. Did you know that?"

Dreamikins listened with the greatest interest. Then she told them about her adventure at the farm.

"I mean to go and see Mrs. Dufty as soon as ever I'm well. She loves me, and I love her."

"Don't you hate lying in bed?" asked Daffy pityingly.

"Yes; but, you see, I had no angel, or it wouldn't have happened. I shall get a new one soon. I shan't have Cherubine back. I didn't quite like one or two things about her. She got to contradick me so often."

Freda and Daffy often wondered how much Dreamikins believed in her own inventions, but they dared not question it to her.

They visited her very often after this, and brought her story-books to read, and puzzles to solve. Very soon she was carried down into the garden, and placed on a couch close to Fibo's chair.

She was rather proud of this position.

"You and me are just alike now, Fibo. I think we're very interessing, aren't we?"

"Just two L.D.'s," said Fibo.

"Lame dogs—yes; and it's very sad for us, isn't it? P'raps I shall never walk again, just like you. Oh, Fibo dear, how did you feel when they tolded you? Didn't you cry a teeny weeny bit?"

Fibo looked at his small niece with rather a twisted smile.

"It pulled me up," he said; "the fence was too high to take at first, but I managed it after a bit."

"Yes; but weren't you cross? Did you never want to throw things at people? I threw a book at Annette this morning!"

"Throwing things doesn't help, little woman! But I do allow it relieves one's feelings."

"I do love you, Fibo, when you unnerstand so. I wish the fairies would come and hop up and down me when I lie like this. If we were to sleep out here one night, you know, they might. We should feel them tickling us. I think you might make up a story about us!"

Fibo was just going to begin, when there was a scurry of feet behind them, a swish of a silk dress, and a lady in dark blue, with a wonderful hat and veil, and a very happy face, swooped down upon them. She took Fibo's head between her two gloved hands, and bending down gave him a quick little kiss on his forehead; then she put her arms right round Dreamikins and smothered her with kisses.

"My Dreamikins, I've come to nurse you. My poor cripples! Isn't one enough in the family without having another?"

It was Dreamikins' mother. She, like her little daughter, arrived in haste without any warning.

Dreamikins put up her hand, and stroked her mother's cheek caressingly.

"I thought you'd have arroved sooner," she said. "I've been ill years!"

"I dare say it seems years to you; but Daddy got leave, and we were in London together; and Daddy always comes first with me, Dreamikins. You know that."

"I come first with Fibo," said Dreamikins, a little triumphantly.

"Now I want to be told all about it—letters don't count—from the beginning. And whose fault was it?"

"The nasty roller's," said Dreamikins promptly. Then she began to tell the story herself, and her mother sat and laughed.

"I can't help it, Gus; don't frown at me. I never could be a proper mother, and Dreamikins is beyond me. Who is your familiar spirit now, childie? You seem to have behaved very rudely to Cherubine."

"I'm just empty," said Dreamikins, "and God is so kind as to take care of me Himself without any angel at all. I'm going to get a fresh angel soon, and then I'll tell you who it is."

She spoke with great dignity. Then Fibo turned to his sister.

"I hope you've come to stay this time."

"For a week or so, if you can have me."

She looked round the garden as if she loved it.

"I don't forget the old days, Gus. How happy I was, and how torn in two I was when I had to leave you!"

"I shall always live with Fibo when I'm growed up," said Dreamikins. "I shan't leave him like you did."

"Oh yes, you will, when a man walks in who means to be your husband. And if I had stayed with your uncle, there would have been no Dreamikins in the world, for God only sent you to me after I had left him."

Dreamikins considered this.

"I don't quite remember," she said quietly; "but I s'pose there were other fathers and mothers who might have liked me besides you and Daddy."

"No," said her mother, shaking her head at her; "there was nobody in the wide world who wanted to have you but Daddy and me. And there would be nobody who could love you, and put up with your antics, as we do, so be thankful you are our child and no one else's. Gus, she must be educated; how is it to be done?"

Mrs. Broughton turned to her brother eagerly as she spoke.

He laughed.

"She's tied by the leg for a good month at least, so we won't load her with education just now. My dear Minna, have you brought any luggage with you? Are they getting your room ready? Will you have some tea?"

"Yes, yes, yes," cried Dreamikins' mother. "Carrie is seeing to everything. I am going to sit here, and do nothing but talk."

She did it in her gay fascinating way, first turning to one of the invalids and then the other. When tea came she poured it out, and the afternoon seemed crammed with sunshine to both Dreamikins and her uncle.

Dreamikins told her mother all about her little friends; in fact her tongue ran on so fast that she quite forgot her leg, until a sudden twinge of pain reminded her, and then her mother took her in her arms, bandaged leg and all, and kissed and fondled her, and sang little gay songs which took away the pain.

When Dreamikins was at last carried off to bed, her mother went into the house, and later on came to dinner in a lovely white lace gown, and Fibo assured her that she was younger and prettier than ever.

"And I hope wiser and better," said Mrs. Broughton, laughing. "I feel I ought to be very clever to have to deal with my small daughter. You manage her best. We love each other dearly, she and I, but we have passages of arms, and then we get very angry with one another, and that isn't good for her or for me. Will you have her, Gus, for a good three months? I'm tired of doing nothing but amuse myself, now every woman is working. And a friend of mine wants me to go out to France with her and help her to work a young women's hostel. Now don't pull a long face, but wish me all success."

"I shall be quite willing to keep Dreamikins; but, my dear Minna, you will be back at the end of your first week out there."

"Not I. This War is altering us all. And I shall be nearer Charlie. It's an awful life when he's out there and I'm here. I was wondering if I should send Annette away and get a nursery governess, because the child must begin to learn something. Do you think Mrs. Harrington would let her little girls learn with Dreamikins? I wonder if I might call, or is it too soon after her husband's death?"

"Write and ask her," said Fibo. "I rather dread possible combats between Dreamikins and a governess. You would have to get the right sort, or there would always be squalls."

"Yes. Is the child extra naughty, do you think, Gus? She has such a will and personality, and her imagination runs riot. That's partly your fault. You always soaked me with poetry and romance, and so it appears in my child. Her father and I gaze at her half paralysed sometimes when she insists upon repeating to us conversations she has with her invisible playmates."

"That will right itself as she gets older. She is a lonely child, and is bound to invent companions if she has none. I did as a boy."

So they talked together, and before she went to bed that night she paid a last visit to Dreamikins.

She lay a picture of health and innocence; and then, as her mother stooped and kissed the soft, flushed cheek, Dreamikins smiled and murmured:

"It's no good to make up to me, Cherubine, I—are quite firm—I won't have you back."

CHAPTER X

The Governess

TEN days Mrs. Broughton stayed with her brother, and in that time she had seen Mrs. Harrington, and actually found a daily governess, who was coming in on her bicycle from the nearest town, three miles off. She was to come to the Dower House every morning, except Saturday, from nine o'clock till twelve, and Freda and Daffy were coming over to learn lessons with Dreamikins.

At first it had been proposed that the lessons should take place at the Hall, but Mrs. Harrington seemed rather afraid of friction between the governess and Nurse, and Freda and Daffy were only too delighted to go to the Dower House. They assured their mother that it was much the best plan, and she willingly agreed with them. For the present, at all events, Dreamikins could not be moved, though the doctor said she was making a marvellously quick recovery, and Mrs. Broughton was anxious that lessons should start as soon as possible.

One other thing Mrs. Broughton did before she left her brother, and this was a great surprise and pleasure.

One sunny afternoon a low four-wheeled pony-chaise drew up at the door of the Dower House, drawn by a stout white Shetland pony with flowing mane and tail. Fibo was taken out in his wheeled chair to inspect it, and Dreamikins was carried out by Daw, her eyes almost starting out of her head with astonishment and delight.

"This is my present to you both," said Mrs. Broughton. "Let me show you how the cushions can be moved, so as to support your poor legs. It has been made expressly for you, Gus, by a Brighton coachbuilder, a friend of mine; and I've spoken to your doctor about it, and he says it's the best thing for you, so you can raise no objections. The summer is going fast. You won't be able to sit out in the garden much longer, and Daw knows of a lad in the village who will come in and look after the pony. You will be able to drive yourself about the lanes, and Dreamikins can learn to drive too if she's a good girl."

Dreamikins gave a yell of delight; she almost threw herself out of Daw's arms; and when she was lifted into the carriage, and a little sliding shelf covered with a cushion shot out from under the seat and received her bandaged leg, she clapped her hands in ecstasy. Then Fibo was lifted in, and they took a trial trip up and down the drive. Mrs. Broughton watched them with a happy smile. Everything worked smoothly. The pony was quiet and manageable, and Fibo had not a single objection to make, except that money ought not to be spent on such things in war-time. Mrs. Broughton said that money was being showered down on invalids, and she was going to shower a little on her two invalids. And after she had given them this present, she said good-bye to them with smiles, and a few tears, and went away.

She was very much missed; but Dreamikins was so full of the pony and of the new governess that she could not be sad, and Fibo was only too glad that his little niece was going to stay on with him. He had been afraid when he first saw her mother that she had come to take her away.

Two days after Mrs. Broughton's departure Dreamikins knocked at her uncle's door before breakfast. She found him nearly dressed in his dressing-gown, lying on his couch by the window enjoying his breakfast. She came in on two crutches, which the doctor now let her use, with a mysterious air.

"I thoughted you'd like to know, Fibo dear, that he's just come down. About half an hour ago he did."

"Who is he?" asked Fibo.

"He's one of God's best angels, and he's very strong, and has been all over the world, and done the most wunnerful things. He can tell stories—lovely ones—of where he has been and what he has done, and his name is Er."

She paused, adding thoughtfully:

"I found that name in my Bible, and God told me it was the right one."

Fibo looked at her.

"Well, it seemed as if God did," said Dreamikins. "I aren't making it up altogether, Fibo."

Then she went on smilingly:

"He won't let nothing hurt me, because he'll be stronger than Cherubine, and he'll make me like to be good, Fibo. Cherubine tried to make me good, but I never liked it, never!"

"Dreamikins," said Fibo gravely, "there's only One Person Who can make you really good. No angel can."

"Yes, of course," said Dreamikins, shrugging her shoulders. "I quite unnerstand, Fibo; but Er and me unnerstand each other, and he'll be a great 'normous help to me. I'm going to show him the garding now, and tell him a few things. Do say you're pleased he has come! He likes being with me very much, he says, and he's promised to always take care of us when we go driving, so that you may be quite comfortable about me driving you. We couldn't have a naxident with Er."

Fibo laughed out at the artfulness of this, and then Dreamikins hobbled away, and he heard her out of his window talking volubly to her new guardian angel.

That same afternoon Freda and Daffy came to tea, and were delighted to see their little friend off her couch, even though she had to use crutches. Her nimbleness with these made her uncle rather nervous.

"Not so fast, little woman. If you had another tumble and another break it might be bed again for six months."

"Oh, I have Er now," said Dreamikins cheerfully; "he'll look after me."

And then, seeing her little friends' surprise, she introduced her new guardian to them promptly, and for a quarter of an hour had a good deal to say about him. After that, they began discussing the new governess, who was to appear in a very few days' time.

"Do you know what she is like, Fibo?" asked Daffy anxiously. "Will she be another kind of nurse? We had a governess in London, she was young, but she didn't like lessons, and used to read story-books to herself while we were doing our sums."

"And where are we going to do our lessons?" asked Freda. "Daffy and me hope perhaps in the garden."

"Oh no," Dreamikins told them; "Mummy got one of Fibo's rooms ready for us. It's upstairs, and the table is so big it takes up all the room. And Mummy says our governess is called Miss Fletcher, but Fibo and I call her the R.P.—that's the Ruling Power. But I hope she won't rule me up and down too much."

"She'll save me from doing it," said Fibo. "Now, I prophesy that she'll be the most charming lady, and we shall all fall in love with her violently, and long for her to live with us altogether!"

"It's very exciting," said Freda. "And do you know, Fibo, Mums is soon going back to London to do war work, and we shall be left here all the winter. She's coming back to us for Christmas, and we mean to have all kinds of nice things then."

"By Christmas I shall be able to dance on both my legs again," said Dreamikins.

They chattered on, for they had a good deal to tell each other, then Freda and Daffy went off to visit Shylock, the pony, in his stable. They loved him as much as Dreamikins did, and longed to possess a pony of their own. Dreamikins told them grandly that she and Fibo were going to drive into the town the next day and do some shopping.

"P'raps you'll see the governess," said Daffy.

"I expect I shall. I hope I shan't drive over her when I see her. I shall be so ercited I may pull the reins crooked."

"Fibo will be driving, not you."

"I shall be driving, always," said Dreamikins, with extreme dignity.

"You don't know how," said Freda. "You think too much of yourself, Dreamikins. Daffy and me say so."

"I don't care what Daffy and you say!"

Dreamikins' cheeks got hot. She was not accustomed to be contradicted.

"You'd better go home," she added, turning her back on them, and beginning to play with Drab's tail.

They were all sitting on the grass together. Freda and Daffy jumped up at once.

"We'll go. It isn't much fun to play with you when you can only hobble and crawl!" said Freda angrily.

Dreamikins' blue eyes sparkled dangerously.

"You're two big babies with a nurse. No wonder she whips you and puts you in the corner. You want smacking now. Go home and tell her to do it. I hate you! I'll never play with you again as long as I live!"

She burst into a storm of sobs, and ran back to Fibo for comfort.

Freda and Daffy ran away down the garden as fast as they could, and crept out of the little door. They felt guilty, and were ashamed of themselves. It was their first quarrel.

"She's too ordering," said Freda; "she always thinks herself better and cleverer than us!"

"Yes," said Daffy quietly; "but I s'pose she is more clever. We don't make up stories half so well as she does. And we oughtn't to have found fault with her broken leg!"

"She's so aggerrating!" said Freda. "Now she'll make Fibo angry with us, and I love Fibo!"

"We'll tell him we're sorry when we go to lessons," said Daffy.

Nothing put Daffy out. But Freda's ruffled feathers took some time smoothing down, and it was not till she had slept over it that she was able to acknowledge herself in the wrong.

The eventful day came at last, and Freda and Daffy were dispatched by Nurse at a quarter to nine. Jane was to take them as far as the gate, and they were to be trusted to come home by themselves.

When they arrived at the Dower House, Carrie showed them into a little cloak-room in the hall where they could hang up their coats and hats.

"Has she come?" Daffy asked eagerly.

"Yes, miss."

"What's she like?"

"A nice-spoken lady," was all that Carrie could tell them.

Then they went upstairs to the room that had been turned into a schoolroom, and found Dreamikins sitting at the table by the side of Miss Fletcher, who was looking through some old lesson-books. Dreamikins, of course, was talking hard. She stopped when Freda and Daffy came into the room; but she evidently had forgotten their quarrel, for she put up her face to be kissed as usual when they came up to her.

"This is Freda and Daffy, Miss Fletcher," she said; "they live next to us, and are very nice."

Miss Fletcher shook hands with them. She had a bright face, fair hair coiled round her head, and was dressed in a dark blue gown. Freda and Daffy liked her at once, for she did not wear spectacles, and they never liked people who did.

"Come along and sit down," she said brightly. "We will not do much this morning, for I am going to pick your brains, and find out how much you know."

She began to question them. The little girls were shy, and answered to the best of their ability. But suddenly Dreamikins rested her elbows upon the table and looked at Miss Fletcher in her intense kind of way.

Miss Fletcher did not notice her look, but asked her:

"And now, Emmeline, we are coming to arithmetic. How many of us are in the room at present?"

Dreamikins slowly answered, "Five."

"Count again."

"Five," she repeated, "but you can see only four; there's you and me and Freda and Daffy and Er."

Miss Fletcher looked at her in a puzzled sort of way.

"Er is sitting close to me," Dreamikins went on; "he never takes a chair, but I feel him squeezing me. He won't want to do lessons, but he must be counted, for he's at the table with us."

Miss Fletcher looked under the table.

"Is it a dog?" she asked.

Freda and Daffy giggled. Dreamikins' face kept quite grave. Then Freda thought she had better explain.

"It's Dreamikins' guardian angel—at least she says it is."

"Oh, I understand now," said Miss Fletcher quietly. "Well, Emmeline, we'll say there are five of us at the table; if three of us went out of the room, how many would remain?"

But Dreamikins did not answer. She was thinking of other things. Then she smiled sweetly at her governess.

"Fibo says—Fibo is my uncle who lives here—Fibo says you're a most charming lady, and he'll fall in love with you violently—yes, violently—and long for you to live here altogether!"

The colour came into Miss Fletcher's cheeks.

"Emmeline," she said quietly, "this is the first day, so I shall make no rules, but to-morrow there must be no talking in lesson-time except about the lessons themselves."

Something in Miss Fletcher's tones reduced Dreamikins to silence. Miss Fletcher turned to Freda and Daffy, and went on questioning them.

Presently a meek little voice said:

"Please, I are waiting to answer."

And there was no more inattention from Dreamikins that morning.

In a few days lessons were firmly established. Miss Fletcher was fond of teaching, and did it in a happy way. The little girls all enjoyed the lessons, but the time they liked best was the half-hour in the middle of the morning, when they had a break and could do what they liked. It was this half-hour which helped Miss Fletcher to understand and know her little pupils. She heard all about Cherubine and her dismissal, and the coming of Er. She was told about the plans of befriending the hungry and thirsty and sick, and the stranger in want of a bed. And then she started a little working party for some poor ragged children. She said if they liked to have it on Saturday afternoon she would bicycle over and help them; and they were all delighted at the idea.

Fibo was very pleased when he heard of this, and promised to provide tea after it. And on Saturday, Miss Fletcher arrived with some pretty warm material already cut out to be made into frocks. The three little girls set to work bravely and cheerfully, but Dreamikins was the first to get tired.

"My fingers is hurting. My thimble has made a mark—it's too tight. My back aches, and now my leg is hurting. I believe sewing is very bad for it."

Then Miss Fletcher produced a storybook, and began to read to them. That made the time pass quicker. They worked for one hour and a half, and Dreamikins was proud of what she had done in the time.

"I'm glad you didn't let me stop," she said to Miss Fletcher. "And Er is very glad too; he wanted me to go on. We've really been working clothes for Jesus Christ, haven't we? He says He'll count it as if it was His!"

Then they had tea in the dining-room, because the weather had turned cold; and Fibo joined them and sat in his big chair at the head of the table, and cracked jokes, and made every one feel happy and comfortable.

Miss Fletcher had to hurry home; she said she had an invalid sister waiting for her. But the little girls stayed on. Freda and Daffy never wanted to go; and then Fibo let them come into his study, and he made funny sketches of an old man called Tumbledown who was never steady on his feet, and at last one day he climbed into an aeroplane because he wanted to go across the world without using his feet, and was never heard of any more.

"I hope you won't go away like that one day," said Dreamikins.

Her uncle looked at her with his funny twinkle.

"One day I shall climb right out of my poor old body, and go up away from you all without any need of an aeroplane," he said.

"And I'll hang on behind you!" said Dreamikins.

"Fibo means that he'll die and go to heaven," said Daffy gravely. "You won't be able to go with him."

"I'll go after him then. Er will take me. That's what he does—takes people to heaven when God calls them. He likes doing it better than anything else. He says he'll tuck me very comfy between his two wings and fly up and up, and he'll show me the moon and all the stars on the way. He tells me just at first I may feel cold, but when you come near heaven it's ever so nice and warm, and you never feel nothing when you get inside."

"But I should like to feel something," objected Freda.

"I mean nothing nasty. What a stoopid you are!"

Then Fibo changed the conversation. When Dreamikins once began to talk about heaven, she could never stop, and invented so fast, and was so angry when she was contradicted, that he thought it better to bring her to safer ground.

When Freda and Daffy went home that afternoon, they told Nurse that even she would have been pleased to see their work.

Nurse sniffed and said:

"I dare say you're proud of it, but in my time children used to be made to sew in school as a regular thing every afternoon; and if you were properly behaved young ladies you would like to do it too."

After that, Freda and Daffy judged it best to keep silent about their good works.

CHAPTER XI

A Visit to a Farm

THE little girls became very fond of their governess. Miss Fletcher loved them all; but of the three, Dreamikins was the most difficult to manage.

One morning she was very inattentive. She sat with her slate before her, apparently working out a sum, but her brain was far away.

"Dreamikins, this is lesson-time," said Miss Fletcher sharply.

She had given up calling her Emmeline. Nobody called her that except Annette and the servants.

"Yes," said Dreamikins, smiling; "but Er is talking to me, and then I have to listen."

"Not in lesson-time," said Miss Fletcher firmly.

"Yes; I do 'sure you he does. I was asking him what happened to the little boy he took care of in a Indian forest when his Daddy was hunting lions, and got lost, and night came on in the dark,—black dark it was,—and the snakes crept up softly to the house, and the wolves sniffed and followed the snakes—"

"That will do. Go on with your sum."

"You interrup' me, and now I can't think at all—not to do sums nor nothing."

Dreamikins spoke in an injured tone. She put down her slate-pencil.

"Sit still for five minutes to clear your brain of all those exciting stories, and then begin your sum. If Er is an angel, Dreamikins, he wouldn't help you to be idle in school-time."

"No; and he doesn't," said Dreamikins quickly. "I were just going to tell you he said to me, 'You must not ask me to finish my story in sum-time.'"

She gave a triumphant look at Freda and Daffy as she spoke.

Miss Fletcher laid her watch on the table.

"I will tell you when the five minutes are up."

Dreamikins kicked her legs against her chair. Then she put her head on one side and smiled coaxingly at her governess.

"Fibo says you're a M.R.P., dear Miss Fletcher. Wouldn't you like to know what that means?"

"After lessons are over, I should."

So, with a sigh, Dreamikins tried to apply herself to her sum when the five minutes were up. It was the only lesson she disliked. Freda and Daffy did their sums in pencil in an exercise-book; Dreamikins made such a mess of her figures that she had to use a slate.

She tried hard to add up her figures, but when she brought them to Miss Fletcher they were all wrong, and angry tears rose in Dreamikins' eyes.

"It must be Satan who jumbles them up, and you won't let Er have nuffin to do with me, and so I've nobody to help me."

Then Miss Fletcher patiently made her stand by her side and count out loud, and in a very short time the sum was done and Dreamikins was happy again.

"Why need we do sums?" she asked.

"Because when you grow up you may have a good deal of money to spend, and if you don't want to waste it you must keep accounts, and put down what you spend; and when you do that, you have to add and subtract and do all the sums I am trying to teach you now."

"When I grow up," said Dreamikins, her eyes gleaming, "I shan't do nuffin that grown-ups gene'lly does. I shall have a airship, and go right away from the world for days and days, and go and see what the moon is like inside, and the stars, and p'raps, if God will let me, I shall climb as near to heaven as I possibly can, just to hear the harps and the singing. And then—"

"You must do some dictation now," said Miss Fletcher gently.

Poor Dreamikins! She was so quick in soaring away, and so quickly brought back to earth again!

Another morning she began to tell some adventures of Er, and this time Miss Fletcher did not interrupt her. She listened for some minutes, then said:

"Very interesting, Dreamikins. And now, instead of telling us the rest of it, just write it all down on your slate. Ask me how to spell the long words, and I will correct it when you've done. It will teach you how to spell."

Dreamikins very slowly obeyed. Her crestfallen little face made Freda giggle, but Miss Fletcher stopped that at once.

The sighs and groans that came from the poor little inventor were pitiable, and after half an hour's hard writing Miss Fletcher let her stop.

But after that, Dreamikins never attempted to tell stories in school-time again.

One afternoon she and Fibo went out in the pony-carriage together. It was a lovely day, bright and sunny, though there was a touch of cold in the air, and the leaves of the trees were turning a beautiful red and yellow and brown. Grinder always followed the carriage close behind, but Fibo would not have Drab or Whiskers taken in the carriage with them, though Dreamikins begged hard that they might come.

Fibo drove through the village, but when they were in the quiet lanes he let Dreamikins hold the reins. That was one of the proudest and happiest moments of her life.

She sat up like a little queen. Occasionally she would steal a glance at her uncle.

"I have my eye on you," he would say.

"Yes, Fibo dear; but I 'sure you, you can go to sleep and I'll drive quite steady. I should like you to have a little nap. It would rest your legs."

"Go to sleep, with the sun shining, and the fairies pelting us with leaves, and the breeze whispering stories into our ears, and the sheep and the cows calling out to us as we pass them? What do you take me for?"

"Oh, Fibo dear, I do love you!"

Dreamikins laughed out in the fulness of her joy.

"Where are we going?" she asked presently. "Always straight on?"

"Where would you like to go?"

"To see Mrs. Dufty, who called me lovie," said Dreamikins, suddenly having an inspiration. "Oh, do you think we could? I believe she would give us some tea in that lovely kitchen of hers."

"I think we might," her uncle said. "I know where she lives; we turn to the right soon."

"I'll turn when we come to it. I know how to turn! I love turning."

But if Fibo's hands had not been quickly over hers, Dreamikins would have pulled the pony right into a ditch.

"You're a little bit too energetic," her uncle told her.

The pony trotted on so quickly, and it was such a flat road, that they very soon came to the farm. Mrs. Dufty came down to the gate in great delight at seeing Dreamikins again. With the help of his crutches, Fibo managed to leave the carriage and get into the kitchen. One of the farm lads held the pony, and then Dreamikins chattered away to her heart's content. Mrs. Dufty listened to her with a beaming face, and produced out of the oven a delicious little apple dumpling.

"'Twas just as if I were expecting you, lovie. Couldn't have baked itself in better time. Only wants to be eaten; and I'll just trot off and get some cream to go with it. And perhaps the gentleman will take a glass of cider, or a drop of my rhubarb wine. I believe we have some sloe gin, if he prefers that?"

Fibo thanked her, but declared a glass of milk would suit him best.

Dreamikins was in the farmer's big armchair, and a tortoise-shell cat sprang up into her lap and purred her approval of her.

"Aren't you happy, Fibo? Isn't it lovely here? Just look at those lovely china dogs and heads on the dresser! When I grow up I shan't have a drawn-room, but a kitchen just like this, and I shall have tea-parties in it. And look at the shining pans! It's perfectly exkisit!"

"When you grow up, Dreamikins," said Fibo, shaking his head at her, "I pity your mother from the bottom of my heart."

Dreamikins was too absorbed in stroking the cat to pay attention to what he said.

When Mrs. Dufty came back, Dreamikins sat up at the table and ate her baked apple dumpling, with a generous dab of cream on the top of it, with the greatest relish.

"A darling little lady," said smiling Mrs. Dufty, turning to Fibo.

"She's an anxious charge, Mrs. Dufty," said Fibo, smiling back.

But Mrs. Dufty retorted:

"The precious things in this world always are."

And that reduced Fibo to silence; but he much enjoyed his glass of milk.

"I wish I could run about," said Dreamikins, with a wistful droop to her mouth. "I should love to see your cows, and baby cows, and pigs and chickens; and they have little turkeys, Fibo. Mr. Dufty told me so! I wish I could have a little turkey to play with Whiskers! I'm sure they'd just love each other."

"And then you would have to kill it and eat it for your Christmas dinner," said Fibo; "turkeys only live for that."

Dreamikins shuddered at this. Then Mrs. Dufty said she hoped she would come out and spend a long day at the farm when her leg was quite well. And Dreamikins promised she would.

It was almost beginning to get dusk when they started to drive home. Fibo drove this time, and Dreamikins talked hard the whole way.

When they got home there was no lad to take the pony, and Daw came out with a very grave face.

"I'll see to him myself, sir. That Michael Dunn is a bad lot, I fear."

"Michael!" cried Dreamikins in dismay. "Why, I love him. He cut me a whistle out of a stick!"

Daw shook his head.

"The police have been after him and took him away. It seems he was helping in a shop at Cressford before he come to us, and he helped himself out of the till, and some pound notes have been found in his home. It's lucky he didn't steal from us; but I had my suspicions that the oats were disappearing quicker than they ought to!"

Fibo was vexed and troubled to hear this. He sent Dreamikins upstairs to Annette, and talked for some time with Daw about the boy, who had only been with him a few weeks, and seemed a bright respectable lad.

To Dreamikins it was a terrible blow. She was full of it the next morning when Freda and Daffy came to lessons. They listened awed and dismayed to the story; then Freda's eyes began to sparkle.

"Dreamikins, it's all for the best! Think of it, he'll be put in prison!"

"Well," said Dreamikins, "that's dreadful! It makes me cry to think of it. I thought only wicked people went to prison. Michael wasn't a bit wicked to me, and he liked Shylock and Shylock liked him!"

"But don't you see, if he's in prison we can go and see him; that's just what we thought was quite impossible; and then we shall have done everything to make us into proper sheep."

"Dreamikins hasn't visited any one sick yet," said Daffy; "we have."

"Yes, but it's only because of my leg I haven't. I mean to visit hundreds in the village. Everybody I shall go and see. Oh, what a joyful thought, Freda!" Her little face was alight with pleasure again. "How splendid it will be! Is he in prison now? Can we go and see him to-morrow? Will they let us in?"

They could only wonder and conjecture, and then lessons began, and they could discuss Michael no longer; but the minute Dreamikins was free she seized her crutch and almost dashed into her uncle's study.

"Fibo! Fibo! When can I go and see Michael in prison? Freda and Daffy and me all want to go."

"Not so fast!" said Fibo. "Poor Michael hasn't been brought before the magistrates yet."

"But the police have got him."

"I don't know where he is at present. I'm going to find out. I assure you, he won't be hustled into prison so quickly. You seem anxious to get him there."

Dreamikins sat down on the floor with a perplexed frown on her face.

"I are sorry for him, very truly sorry, but you see, Fibo dear, he'll be in the very place we want to go to. And you mustn't on no account whatever stop us from going, because it's so very important. Don't you remember what the Bible says?"

"Now I see what you're driving at. But you're asking a big thing, Dreamikins, and perhaps you'll be disappointed. Michael may never be put in prison after all. I hope not. He'll get off with a fine, I dare say. Prison hardens lads like that. Wouldn't you rather he stayed away from prison altogether?"

Dreamikins sighed heavily.

"It's very differcult, Fibo. I don't want to feel unkind about him."

"I'm sure you don't."

Dreamikins slowly got upon her feet again.

"And how soon shall we know about him?"

"I dare say in a few days. I will tell you as soon as I hear. Are lessons over?"

"Oh, lessons!"

Dreamikins brought down her uninjured leg and foot with a stamp upon the carpet, and tears filled her blue eyes.

"It's always trying and especking and not getting. I do think it might happen easy and comfortable for Michael and us. I wish I could grow and swell up into a grown-up person quick, and then I'd just go and get everything done in one day."

"But, my poor little impatient Dreamikins, don't you know we can't all get our good deeds into one day and be finished with them? They must last our lifetime. And it is not doing a thing once that tells; it's doing it continually."

Dreamikins shook her curly head sadly.

"I always did hate that word contin'lly. It means go on, and on, and on, doesn't it? I like to go on, and then stop and do somefing different."

"So you do. And we've had enough of this sober talk. Get me my baccy-jar over there; I'm going to smoke a pipe. Will you fill it for me? And then I'll show you a picture I've been drawing this morning."

Dreamikins was her sunshiny self at once. Not again that day did she mention Michael, or the prison into which she was wanting to put him.

But the next morning she pushed her way into her uncle's room very early.

"Fibo, when I was in bed this morning, Er told me of all the people he had got out of prison. Don't you remember Peter in prison? One of God's angels got him out. Er thinks if him and me goes together we'll get Michael out very quick. It wouldn't hurt him to be in prison a teeny weeny little bit if I comed quick and let him out. So it won't be wicked to wish him there for about half an hour."

Fibo judged it best not to take his small niece seriously. He refused to be drawn into any arguments, and would only talk nonsense, distracting her mind at once from the undesirable subject.

When Dreamikins met her governess a little later, she said:

"Fibo and me have been having such pretence games in his room that I feel quite tarred. He's the funniest man in the world. He's been turning his face into all kinds of things—a H.D., and a P.D., and a A.O., and into you!"

"Into me?" said the astonished Miss Fletcher.

"Yes, into the M.R.P. That's what you are."

"I never shall understand all your letters," said Miss Fletcher pleasantly.

And then Daffy enlightened her.

"H.D. means Haughty Dragon, and P.D. means Proud Dog, and A.O. means Angry Ogre, and M.R.P. means the Mighty Ruling Power!"

"Well," said Miss Fletcher decidedly, "the M.R.P. says lessons at once, and no more talking, and as Dreamikins has been laughing till she is tired, it will rest her to have a grave face for the rest of the morning."

Nothing put Miss Fletcher out. She was always pleasant, but always firm; and Dreamikins as well as Freda and Daffy had already learnt the meaning of that long word "discipline" in the schoolroom.

CHAPTER XII

The Prisoner

MICHAEL DUNN did get sent to prison for a month. It was by no means his first offence, and I cannot say that the little girls were really sorry for it. They all determined to go and see him. Freda was the one who planned how they should do it. She thought if she went to his mother she could coax her into taking them with her when she went. Jane, who knew everybody, told Freda and Daffy all about the lad's mother. She said her husband had been a bad lot, and the son was taking after him. Mrs. Dunn had been a widow for some years. One afternoon when out with Jane they met Mrs. Dunn, and Jane stopped to speak to her. It was Freda's opportunity; but she was bitterly disappointed when she heard that Michael would be allowed no visitors, and even his mother could not go and see him. When next they met Dreamikins they told her this. She was quite overcome by the bad news.

"But we must see him! It must be allowed. It is what God wishes. We must do somefing at once."

It was after lesson-time, just before Freda and Daffy went home, that they were discussing the question. Dreamikins dashed into her uncle's study, dragging her little friends after her.

"Oh, Fibo, Fibo! It's a shame! It seemed as if everyfing was coming true, and we were really going to do it! It's the only differcult thing we can't manage ourselves; and it was getting easy, and now it's all no good, and they won't let us see him. It's no good, we shall never be the sheep; we shall end by being goats, all because we couldn't get in."

"What is it all about?" asked Fibo mildly.

Dreamikins' eyes were full of tears; she was clenching her hands, as she did when she was much distressed. Freda and Daffy's faces were miserable as they stood each side of her.

"It's Michael," explained Freda. "We thought we could go to see him, and even his mother can't."

Dreamikins climbed upon her uncle's knees and clasped him firmly round his neck, then, resting her tear-stained cheek against his, she went on:

"You are the only hope we have, Fibo dear, the only hope! You're grown-up, and we feel you'll help us, won't you? We really must be helped. It will all be no good if we can't get into Michael's prison. And Er, Fibo,—" here she lifted her head and gazed into his eyes gravely,—"Er has been telling me it's nuffing to get into prison, and God likes people to be visited, and God will show you how to get us in."

"Oh, Fibo, do," pleaded Freda; and Daffy came up to his chair, and took hold of one of his hands and kissed it. "Do, do, do something to help us."

"Upon my word," said Fibo, shaking his head at them, "you take my breath away. I am not the governor of the prison, or the chaplain, or a prison visitor."

"Then there is a prison visitor?" said Freda eagerly. "Why can't we be prison visitors? The Bible says we are to be."

Fibo's kind heart was touched with the children's distress. He told them to be quite quiet while he put on his thinking cap, and they watched him eagerly, and anxiously, and silently, with big eyes and open mouths.

Then at last he said:

"Well, nothing venture, nothing have! The prison chaplain is a friend of mine, and I'll write to him and ask him if he could smuggle us in one day. I doubt if he can do it—but still there's a chance; only he will say there are too many of us."

"No, no," cried Dreamikins; "we'll squeeze in behind, very small. I couldn't possibly be dis'pointed, and Freda and Daffy couldn't. You see, we all are working so hard, and we can all go in the pony-carriage. Oh, Fibo dear, it will be lovally!"

"It will be heavenly!" exclaimed Freda; and Daffy began to dance up and down upon her toes.

"Now I do pray and beseech you," said Fibo imploringly, "not to be laying up another disappointment in store for yourselves. It's a very difficult undertaking, and if you young creatures had not such wheedling ways of creeping into my heart and upsetting everything there, I shouldn't attempt improbabilities. You must give me time, and you mustn't worry and wear me to fiddlestrings because I can't settle it all up in a minute! Run along, and when the door is tightly shut, and your voices out of ear reach, I may be able to take up my pen and write a letter."

The little girls obediently left the room. Freda and Daffy had to go home, but Dreamikins said hopefully:

"Fibo will do it. He's a wunnerful man."

"Yes," said Freda; "and we feel God is on our side, and we'll ask Him in our prayers to-night to help that chaplain to say 'Yes.'"

"Oh, I shan't wait till to-night! I'll ask God now," said Dreamikins. She astonished Freda and Daffy by suddenly falling down on the grass in the garden, and putting her hands over her face, and her face on the ground. Freda and Daffy watched her in silence. She jumped up in about two minutes.

"I've done it."

"We never say our prayers in the daytime," said Daffy.

"And never flat on the ground," said Freda.

"Oh, I do," said Dreamikins, nodding her curls at them. "I always ask God things d'reckly I think of them; and I saw pictures of people in India who pray like that, and so I do it too, and Er says it's a good thing to do, because the Bible always likes you to be low down; and sometimes I hit my chest like the Publican. That's a good thing to do too!"

They could only stare. Dreamikins' statements always interested them. But they both added a fervent petition to God at the end of their prayers that night:

"Oh, please, God, let us go and see Michael in prison."

Two days afterwards, Fibo was able to tell the children that the chaplain, a Mr. Horner, had asked them all to come to tea with him in the prison, and then he would manage that they should see Michael.

This caused great excitement. To have tea in a prison was an entertainment indeed! Everything seemed to work smoothly. Mrs. Harrington gave her permission for them to go, and one bright afternoon Freda and Daffy started off for the Dower House. They found the little pony-carriage waiting at the door, and it was three very happy little girls who drove off a few minutes later. Fibo drove. He would not allow Dreamikins to touch the reins this afternoon; but she was so full of joy at going to the prison that she could think and talk of nothing else. They were disappointed, when they got to the chaplain's rooms, to find them much the same as other people's rooms.

"We thoughted you would be in a stone room with high windows and bars," said Dreamikins to the young man.

He laughed.

"But why put me in prison? I don't quite deserve it, do I?"

"But you live in a prison," said Dreamikins.

Neither she nor her little friends could quite understand it. They sat at a big table and enjoyed their tea; and while they were eating cake and bread-and-butter, Mr. Horner heard why they were so anxious to see Michael.

"We're fond of poor Michael," said Dreamikins softly; "but we aren't coming just to see him because we love him, but because we want to be able to tell Jesus we've done it when He's counting out His sheep and goats."

And Mr. Horner nodded, and seemed to quite understand almost as well as Fibo did.

"I'm sorry for the boy," he said. "His sentence was a bit hard, I think; but he comes of a bad stock, and I think that told against him. I've told the warder to expect us after tea."

So, after tea, they followed Mr. Hornet through a baize door and down a long corridor; and then a warder came forward. He had keys in his hand, and took them on farther to a little room nearly at the end of the passage. He unlocked the door, and there was Michael. He had been having his tea, but the little girls heard that he had been working at some post office bags before. Now he stood up, with hanging head and sullen face.

Dreamikins looked at the cell with interested eyes, and then sidled up to Michael's side.

"Poor Michael!" she said, in a soft whisper, slipping her little hand into his. "I've got a angel with me, do you know!—very nice he is, and I did hope him and me togever could get you out of prison; but Fibo said 'No,' nobody could do it without breaking the law. Are you very mis'able here, dear Michael?"

The lad turned his face sharply away from her, and drew the cuff of his sleeve across his eyes.

Dreamikins kept tight hold of one of his hands, and bent her head forward coaxingly.

"Never mind, dear Michael. You won't never do it again, will you? And you can be quite happy in prison, you know. Some of the Bible people sang hymns, and made quite a noise. I forget their names. And God always comes to people in prisons. And I'm so very glad we've comed here, for do you know that Jesus says we're visiting Him if we visit you? Fancy that! You're instead of Him! I can't quite explain it. And Shylock misses you so much. He looks round every day to see when you're coming back. And he sent you his love and a kiss, and somefing very nice. It's here in this embelope. It's a lock of his hair. I cut it off myself. Won't you like to have it?"

Michael's great fingers closed on the packet, and the sullen boy choked down a sob. He suddenly realised how much he had lost and thrown away. Then Fibo called to Dreamikins. The others were standing in the passage; for Mr. Horner said each of the little girls might go in alone. Dreamikins stretched up on tiptoe, and put her arms round Michael's neck as she kissed him for a good-bye.

The Freda and Daffy stole forward softly, hand in hand.

"You don't mind us coming to see you, Michael, do you?" said Freda. "You see, Daffy and me and Dreamikins are all very sorry for you, and we wanted to bring you some chocs; but Fibo said it wouldn't be allowed. Are they very cruel to you in prison?"

He shook his head. Daffy patted him on the arm caressingly.

"We've been talking about you every day, and it's Fibo who's got us in to see you. Your mother wants to come, and they won't let her. Would you like to send a message to her, Michael? We'll take it."

"Tell her I'll be honest when I comes out," said Michael gruffly.

Daffy nodded, and Freda said:

"We would have come long ago if we could, for it's the one thing God likes people to do, only grown-up people don't seem to believe it. I suppose God is very fond of any one in prison. He tells us we must go and see prisoners, and so we've come. Good-bye, Michael. And, do you know, we've come in the pony-carriage."

"And Shylock is outside," said Daffy; "wouldn't you like to have seen him? Wouldn't it have been funny if he had come after us, and poked his head inside the door to see you?"

She laughed gleefully, and Michael smiled. Then they were called away, and Fibo stepped forward.

"Your chaplain has allowed this visit, Michael, otherwise we could not have come. It is very good of him to have managed it for us. This is a sad pull-up to you, my boy; but be a good lad, and make a fresh start when you come out, and I'll see what I can do for you."

A few minutes after they were all getting into the pony-carriage again, and thanking Mr. Horner for his kindness.

"You have helped these small people to realise one of their ideals, Horner," said Fibo, as he shook hands with him.

Mr. Horner nodded.

"I wish we were more like them," he said, and as his eyes met Fibo's, they both smiled, for they understood each other very well.

Dreamikins was very quiet when she got into the carriage. She had a rapt smile about her face. Presently she looked across at Freda and Daffy.

"We've done it nearly all now, and very soon we shall be quite, quite ready to die."

"Oh, I don't know," Freda said doubtfully. "I don't feel like that at all. I want to live and grow up and do wonderful things, much more wonderful than what we've done to-day."

"I was very disappointed in the prison," said Daffy. "I thought there would be chains, and stone pillars, and darkness all underground. It wasn't very awful after all, and Michael was in quite a nice room."

"You did not expect to find him in a Roman dungeon," said Fibo, "did you? And our prisons do have worse cells than the one we saw this afternoon. But Michael is not a desperate criminal, and I think the confinement quite enough punishment for him. I hope it will be the making of him."

"Well," said Freda, "Daffy and me have done everything the Bible tells us, and now we're free to be as naughty as we like!"

"Oh dear!" sighed Dreamikins. "I must go and see somebody sick to-morrow, and then I'll be free too. But we haven't really clothed the naked, have we?"

"We shall, when Miss Fletcher gives our frocks away to the ragged children; and we've nearly finished them."

"I should rather like to fasten the frocks on them myself," said Dreamikins. "I'll ask Miss Fletcher to-morrow morning."

Fibo let the children talk freely without interrupting them. He did not want them to feel that he was always correcting them. But when Freda and Daffy said good-bye that afternoon and thanked him prettily for having taken them, he said with a smile:

"Don't think that our visit to Michael has made us all quite perfect, will you? We have a lot to learn, and a good deal of fighting against our three enemies."

"Which are they?" asked Daffy.

"The world, the flesh, and the devil."

"Oh, that's the catechism," said Freda indifferently. "Nurse is very fond of that. Daffy and me don't like it. We really don't, Fibo. It has such long names."

But Dreamikins bent forward, eager interest in her eyes.

"I like enemies. Er will help me to fight them. He's made the devil run away from him lots of times. Tell us more, Fibo."

"Not now. Some other time."

The children separated. Freda and Daffy had a good deal to tell Nurse when they got back to their nursery.

She shook her head.

"Folks say that Captain Arnold is very soft-hearted. 'Tis encouraging that wicked young thief to go and see him; but I do believe you children can twist the Captain round your fingers."

"Dreamikins can," said Daffy. "Fibo adores her, and she adores him."

"And I adore them both," said Freda quickly. "They're simply perfect!"

When they met Miss Fletcher the next morning they told her of their visit, and she listened with more sympathy and interest than Nurse had done.

Then Dreamikins said:

"And now we must make haste and clothe the naked children, but I'm wanting to put the frocks on them myself, Miss Fletcher. I think God would like us to."

Miss Fletcher shook her head.

"I'm going to send these to my sister in London. She's a nurse, and works in the East End; but I'll ask her to write and tell us all about it when she has given the frocks away. The next thing we must make are some flannel petticoats, for winter is coming on. You will be busy for a long time."

"We needn't be," said Freda; "if we've done it once, it's enough."

Miss Fletcher knew the Bible story well that they were trying to act out. She shook her head.

"You haven't any of you understood that rightly," she said. "The people whom our Lord commended were those who made all those things a part of their lives. They were always thinking of others and doing things for others, not just when they felt inclined. And if you keep your eyes open to help when help is needed, that will be doing what God wishes. But none of us can ever sit down and say our work is done."

"How very tiring!" said Freda.

"Er says we shan't work in heaven," Dreamikins asserted.

"I don't know about that," said Miss Fletcher.

The little girls said no more.

Daffy said afterwards, when Miss Fletcher had gone away:

"She's rather like Nurse. Grown-up people always make everything so dull and stupid. But Freda and I mean to go on seeing Mrs. Bone. She loves us, and it's real fun going to visit her."

"And I'm going to see an old man," said Dreamikins—"our milkman's father. He's bedridden; that's what they call it; and our milkman says he's very lonely, and Fibo says I can, so I'll go this afternoon, and then we'll all be equal!"

Dreamikins was able to make her visit. Annette accompanied her to the door, and then was asked inside by the milkman's wife, a cheerful young woman whose name was Mrs. Ford. She took Dreamikins up a narrow little staircase into a very clean, bright bedroom, where an old man lay in bed close to the window.

"Here's a little lady to see you, feyther. I'll sit her on this chair, and then she can talk pretty to you. Jim, he goes to their house with milk. 'Tis the Captain's little niece."

Dreamikins sat upon the chair pulled forward for her with great dignity, and Mrs. Ford clattered downstairs. She wanted a little gossip with Annette.

"Do you like me coming to see you?" Dreamikins began.

Old John Ford nodded his head. "Ay, little missy; talk a bit to me. 'Tis cruel lonesome lyin' here."

If there was one thing that Dreamikins could do well, it was talking. She began at once. She told him about herself and her parents and her pets and Fibo and all her guardian angels; she told him about her broken leg and how she broke it, and about Freda and Daffy and Miss Fletcher; about her pony, Shylock, and about Michael in prison, and about everybody else that she had ever seen or heard of. And at last she stopped quite breathless, and then began to question him.

How many children had he? Did he like rice pudding? Did he wear curls when he was a boy? When did he come to bed? Could he tell a story? Had he ever seen a fairy? Did he think goats very wicked animals? Had he been a milkman? Had his son any little baby cows? Would he like to eat a bun?

And after this last question Dreamikins produced a bun in a crushed paper bag, which she had been holding tight in her hand, and which bag was very hot and sticky in consequence.

Old John declared he would like nothing better, and whilst he was eating it Dreamikins made a tour round the room, looking at and admiring everything. A picture of the battle of Waterloo attracted her attention.

"Did you fight in it?" she asked, and was disappointed when John said "No."

"I thought when there was fighting everybody who isn't old has to go."

"'Tis a terrible time to live when there be a war waging," said John. "I wish I'd been taken afore it come."

"Taken where to?" asked Dreamikins.

"To my Home above," said the old man with reverence.

"Do you want to go there soon? I don't, not just yet, unless, of course, I'm wanted. And Er will carry me up all right. He won't let me tumble, so I shan't be frightened. I'll lend him to you if you like when you have to go up. When do you think it will be? Would you like Er to carry you? He will if I ask him. He has carried such lots of people there. He sometimes tells me about them. You'd better let me know when you're going, and I'll send him."

"Ay, I shall be in no want of angels then! The Almighty didn't forget to send 'em for the beggar that sat at the rich man's gate, and He'll send 'em for me," said the old man.

There was pleased satisfaction in his tone. Then he looked at Dreamikins and smiled.

"Can you read the Book, missy? Parson, he sometimes do read to me, and there's that chapter—the comforting one about the place prepared for us. I'd like to hear it again."

Dreamikins eagerly seized the big Bible on the table near his bed.

"I can read anything," she said proudly.

But she was some time in finding the place. Old John told her it was the fourteenth chapter in the New Testament, and Dreamikins tried to find it in St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke before she came to St. John. She read the chapter nearly through in her soft childish voice, and then Annette called her.

She jumped up to go.

"I'll come and read to you again, and I'll read you the chapter we like best. It's the twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew—the last part of it. It tells about me coming to see you. Good-bye."

She stretched over the bed and kissed his withered cheek, then stumbled down the steep stairs, and trotted off home very pleased with her visit.

When she met Freda and Daffy the next morning she told them about it, but they did not seem very interested. Their mother was going away that afternoon, and they were full of her departure.

"Nurse doesn't like being here in the winter. She told Mums she thought it would be too cold for Bertie, and we're afraid Nurse will get us back to London. Mums always ends by doing what she wishes."

Dreamikins' face fell.

"You mustn't go, now you do lessons with me. Couldn't Nurse and Bertie go and leave you behind?"

"Nurse will never leave us," said Daffy hopelessly. "I believe she'll stay with us till we quite grow up."

She and Freda were very downhearted that morning, and when Mrs. Harrington came into the nursery to wish them good-bye, Freda put her arms round her neck and whispered in her ear, so that Nurse should not hear:

"Do let us stay the winter here, Mums. Don't listen to Nurse."

Mrs. Harrington shook her head at her.

"What should I do without Nurse?" she said. "She takes care of all of us. Of course this house is a great expense. Mr. Denton wants me to let it, and I am trying to do so; but till that time comes, I don't see why you should not stay on. Don't bother your heads about it, children. Why do you want to stay here so much? It's much livelier in town."

"But Dreamikins isn't there," said Daffy.

"Oh, that child! Nurse thinks she leads you into mischief. Perhaps you would be best apart."

But both Daffy and Freda cried out at this.

"She helps us to be good, Mums. She's much gooder than we are. She's always talking about angels and heaven! It was only one day that she was really naughty!"

Mrs. Harrington shook her head again.

"It isn't talking that I believe in, it is doing. Remember that. You can talk like an angel and yet be the most troublesome child in the world. And I fancy that Dreamikins is rather that sort."

Freda and Daffy looked horrified. After their mother had said good-bye to them all, and they had stood at the nursery windows and waved their handkerchiefs to her as she drove away from the house, Freda said:

"It is Nurse who doesn't like Dreamikins, and she tells Mums tales of her. She can't forget the rhyme Dreamikins sang in front of her face the day she was so naughty!"

"I think she's more good than wicked," said Daffy thoughtfully. "She means to be good, and she's made me think much more about God since I knew her."

"She's a darling, and Nurse is a—"

But Nurse came up then, and Freda's sentence was never finished.

CHAPTER XIII

A New Playmate

IT was a dull cold afternoon in November. Freda and Daffy were in the nursery, which looked the picture of cosy comfort. There was a blazing fire in the grate and a bright picture screen to keep out the draughts of the door. Bertie was playing with a box of tin soldiers on the hearth-rug; Nurse was mending a pair of his socks in her rocking-chair. Freda and Daffy had been tidying their dolls' house, and now were standing at the window watching the wind sweeping the dry leaves along the avenue, and wondering what they had better do next.

"There's quantities of things we could do," said Freda, "but Nurse will say 'No' to most of them. We could go into the bathroom and have a wash. All the dolls want washing, and so do their clothes. But Nurse says we aren't to leave the room."

"Let's get our scrap books. Miss Fletcher says her sister would like to have them when they're finished to give to her poor children."

For want of something better to do, they got their books out and commenced to paste pictures in them, talking all the time. Nurse presently put down her work and left the room. Soon Freda ran to the window.

"Come quick, Daffy! I thought I heard something. There's a motor coming up the avenue. Who can it be?"

Daffy darted to the window.

"I expect it's visitors who don't know Mummy is away."

They cautiously opened the window and hung their heads out.

"Why, it's Aunt Frances," cried Freda.

Aunt Frances was their mother's sister, and lived in the north of England. They did not often see her; only when she came up to town.

"She doesn't know Mummy is away! Oh, I do hope she'll stay the night!"

Daffy danced round the room in excitement; Bertie at once joined in. Then the dance turned into a chase round the table, in which Freda joined; and then, when they were all screaming at the top of their voices, the nursery door opened, and their aunt appeared, followed by a chubby-cheeked boy in knickerbockers, and Nurse brought up the rear.

"You seem very cheerful up here," their aunt said.

"They turn it into Bedlam when I'm not here," said Nurse crossly.

"It was only because we saw you on the steps, Aunt Frances," said Freda breathlessly.

"We're so glad to see anybody," said Daffy, with emphasis; "we were feeling very dull."

Their aunt laughed.

"Well, I have brought you Edmund as a companion. He has been sent home from school because of an outbreak of scarlatina, and I'm shutting up my house, and going to join your mother in town. She told me to bring him along here. The country air will do him good."

"It's to be hoped that he is safe from infection," said Nurse grimly; "we don't want scarlatina brought here."

"Now, Nurse, do you think I should have brought him if the doctors had not assured me it would be safe? You'll take care of him, won't you, like a good soul, and I'll be everlastingly grateful to you. I know we've sprung upon you very suddenly, but we only decided to do it early this morning. Here is a note for you from Mrs. Harrington."

She took a seat in Nurse's rocking-chair, and pulled Bertie towards her as she spoke.

"Now, Baby Bertie, give me a kiss. How you've grown! Freda and Daffy, you haven't seen Edmund for three years. He comes just between the two of you, so you will be companions together. You mustn't get into scrapes, or I shall hear about it from Nurse."

Freda looked shyly at Edmund. He stood, legs well apart and hands in his pockets, and returned her gaze rather defiantly.

"Are you going to do lessons with us?" asked Daffy.

"Not if I know it!"

There was no doubt or hesitation in Edmund's tone.

"He'll amuse himself; and he has been given a holiday task to do," said his mother. "It's a pity Bertie is not a little older. Poor little man! He will never know his father."

Here she gave a sigh.

"I hope my boy won't lose his father in this awful War!"

"It will be nice to have Edmund to play with," said Freda, looking at Edmund with great interest. Then she followed him, for he walked off to the toy cupboard to inspect their games and books. He did not approve of many of them.

"Do you play hockey?" he asked.

They shook their heads.

"Football or cricket?"

"No."

"Then you're two rotters!"

"Hush, Edmund; you can teach them! Now I shall have to go. No, children, I can't stay to tea. I must get back to town as soon as I can."

In a few minutes Aunt Frances had gone. Nurse went out of the nursery with her, and they had some talk together downstairs. When she came back to the nursery, Edmund had made himself thoroughly at home. He was talking in the most eager way, and Freda and Daffy were deeply interested in what he was saying.

"Fireworks and a bonfire! How lovely! Have you the fireworks in your box?"

He nodded.

"Mums gave them to me; and I have an air-gun. Are there any things to shoot in the park?"

"Now look here, Master Edmund," interrupted Nurse, "I'm quite willing to have the charge of you if you behave like a little gentleman, but I'm not going to have you play any antics here. And as to fireworks and guns and bonfires, they are all dangerous things, and we can do without them."

"Mums gave me the fireworks. She said the gardener would help me send them off!"

"Oh well," said Nurse more mildly, "that's a different thing. We'll see what Mr. Trimmer will say to that. Now you follow me, and I'll show you the bedroom you're going to have."

Edmund marched away with her. He was not at present at all in awe of Nurse. When he came back to the nursery, tea was ready. The children had plenty to talk about during the meal. Edmund's ideas were bold in the extreme. He hoped to ride one of the horses, and go out fishing, and shoot with the gamekeeper; he liked climbing trees, and intended to have "good sport."

Nurse laughed at him. He was so soft and chubby to look at, so very manly in his talk. Then he was told of Dreamikins.

"A pity she isn't a boy," he said; "but she can come and see my fireworks!"

After tea he got out a mechanical engine of his, and when he had set it going on the nursery floor, and tied Bertie's cart on to it with a load of bricks, the children were delighted. They played contentedly till bedtime, and Freda and Daffy began to think that it was very nice to have a boy to play with.

The next morning Edmund was down in the stables long before breakfast-time, and he persuaded the old coachman to put him on the back of one of the carriage horses, and trotted up and down the avenue on it, to the great admiration of his cousins, who watched him from the nursery windows. Then he liberated a small terrier who was generally tied up in the stables, and actually brought him up to the nursery. But Nurse quickly sent him down again.

"How I wish we needn't go to lessons to-day!" sighed Freda.

"I shall go out fishing," said Edmund. "Old Bates says he'll come with me."

Bates was the coachman, and Nurse was quite willing to trust him with the charge of Edmund.

"Nurse, Dreamikins hasn't been to tea for ages and ages. May she come this afternoon? Do say 'Yes,'" begged Daffy.

For some reason or other Nurse was in a very good temper to-day.

"If her uncle likes her to come, she can; but remember, I don't trust her, and if she gets up to any pranks, home I'll send her as soon as look at her!"

The little girls departed to their lessons, delighted with this permission. Dreamikins was enchanted to come, and very anxious and excited to see the fresh arrival.

"I like boys," she said. "I knew Harry and Frank at Brighton; they used to play with me, and I fished, oh, lots of times with them!"

She arrived at three o'clock that afternoon, and found all the children on the lawn. They were assisting Trimmer and the under-gardener to sweep up the leaves.

"We're going to have a bonfire just in the beginning of the park," said Freda excitedly.

Dreamikins' eyes gleamed with delight. Then she was introduced to Edmund. They looked at each other for a moment in silence, then Dreamikins said:

"I shall call you R.R."

"What's that?" he demanded.

"Fibo has a story of a R.R., and he drew him on paper just like you. He rode, and he roved, and he was a robber, and the lines about him were:

"'The round rogue rode a red reptile,
And ruined rainbows, rats, and rooks.'"

Edmund chuckled, and retorted quickly:

"And round the rugged rock the ragged robber ran."

Then he dropped his brush, darted round a tree, and raced after Dreamikins, who fled away screaming.

She was soon caught.

"Now call me a rogue again!"

He had her by the wrists. Dreamikins looked up at him with one of her angelic smiles.

"Darling rogue, I do 'dore you!"

And Edmund was so taken aback that he let her go.

Half an hour after, a great bonfire of rubbish, sticks, and leaves was burning up. The children danced round it in great delight.

"I wish we could burn something nice. They used to burn witches, didn't they?" said Daffy.

"Let us make a witch—a kind of Guy!"

So they ran off to the house to see if they could find anything out of which to make it.

Jane good-naturedly gave them an old hat and veil of hers, and Nellie an old petticoat. Then they went to a barn in the yard and got a sack, and Edmund, who was the leader, ordered them to stuff it with straw. The little girls laughed with delight when this sack was dressed in the petticoat and hat and veil. They tied a rope round her middle, and dragged her along to the bonfire.

"We've got a witch," they shouted, "and we've brought her to be burnt!"

Trimmer stuck his pitchfork into her, and hoisted her upon the burning pile.

Dreamikins watched her with clasped hands and eager eyes. It really almost looked like a woman burning; the hat hung down and the petticoat waved about in the wind. Then the flames licked round it and blazed up, the sack burst, and with a loud cry Dreamikins flung herself down on the ground, covering her face with her hands.

"Take me away!" she cried. "I've sawed enough. It's a horrible sight. It's a real witch burning. I know it is!"

Freda pulled her up from the ground, but tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"Let's get away," she sobbed. "I hate the old bonfire!"

Edmund looked at her with a superior smile.

"Isn't she a baby?" he said.

But Dreamikins only flung him an angry glance as she hurried over the grass. She recovered herself in a few minutes, but would not go back to the bonfire.

"It's so cruel," she said.

"But it was only a sack of straw," argued Daffy.

"Oh, it was cruel to burn the hat," said Dreamikins. "I can't explain myself, but I felt it was cruel!"

Presently Edmund and Freda also had had enough of the bonfire. They joined Dreamikins and Daffy.

"I wish it was dark," said Edmund, "and then I could let off my fireworks."

"When it's dark, Nurse will call us in," said Freda.

"Now what shall we play at?" asked Daffy.

Dreamikins pointed her finger at Edmund.

"He's the round rogue; I'm going to be the Princess walking through the wood, and he'll rob me, and then you, Freda, will come and ride away with me, and Daffy will be the old woman who takes us in."

The game started. Edmund proved a very dashing rogue and robber—so much so that Dreamikins spoilt the game by suddenly turning against her knight and defender, and fleeing after the robber.

"I likes you best; I'll turn into a rogue and robber, and we'll drag the others by their hair into our cave!"

The game prolonged itself till tea-time, and then they were called indoors. Dreamikins sat up at the tea-table as good as gold. Nurse looked approvingly at her.

"Your governess is improving you," she said.

Dreamikins shook her head.

"Oh dear no! It's Er. Er is making me so good that I forget how to be naughty."

"Who's Er?" demanded Edmund. "Do you mean her? Can't you sound your h's?"

"I mean Er," said Dreamikins; "and he isn't her, he couldn't be. He's a very nice angel with black curls and black eyes, and he's sitting on my chair with me now!"

"Angels don't sit on chairs. Why should they?"

"Because they chooses to, and Er likes to be close to me, so he does it."

"You're talking nonsense."

Dreamikins raised herself in her chair eagerly.

"It isn't nonsense. You're only a round rogue. Fibo's round rogue was rolled round and round till he got into a ball, and then an ogre came by and threwed him up into the moon, and he peeps out, showing one fat cheek when the moon is full. That's what will be done to you one day."

Edmund stared at her.

"What a rum kid she is!" he said.

Freda and Daffy were not sure whether Dreamikins was going to get on with Edmund; but after tea, when they played together again, they noticed that Edmund always did what Dreamikins wanted. There was no doubt she had a way with her; and suddenly, in the midst of a hot argument, she would smile her radiant smile and call him a nice boy, and then he would stop arguing and agree with her instantly.

But they had a last argument together when Annette called for her, and she stood in her hat and coat wishing them good-bye.

"Say good-night to Er," she demanded, turning to Edmund.

"There's no Er here. Show him to me."

"I shan't. You're to believe me."

"You might as well say an elephant is in the nursery."

"If I said it, he would be."

"You're just a pretence-maker, that's what you are, and a story-teller."

"Fibo is a lovely story-teller. I'd like to be like him. I shall ask Er to flap his wings in your face when you're asleep to-night, and then you'll be frightened."

"Oh, Dreamikins," objected Daffy, "angels would never frighten people."

"Er would do it for me. Boys who won't believe must be punished."

Dreamikins tried to look severe.

Edmund frowned at her.

"Er told me he once took care of a boy who wouldn't believe in him, and he tooked him to a high cliff above the sea and let him tumble over, and then he just caught him in time, and then he asked him if he felt him do it, and the boy said 'Yes,' and he cried and begged his angel's pardon."

"Boys don't cry."

"When nobody sees them they does."

Edmund considered.

"I take care of myself," he said. "It's only babies who believe in angels taking care of them."

"You don't read your Bible," said Dreamikins. "Peter had a angel to get him out of prison, and heaps of grown-up people had them. If you don't say good-night to Er, I shan't ask you to tea and to come and see Fibo and me."

Edmund squared his shoulders.

"All right; I don't care," he said.

"Come along, Miss Emmeline," called Annette.

Then Dreamikins sidled up to him.

"Dear Robber Rogue, just whisper it very low. Er is close to your shoulder now. He does want you and me to be frens."

And Edmund shrugged his shoulders.

"Good-night, Er; you're a proper humbug, and you know it!"

Dreamikins danced away.

"If you're rude to him, God will send you a horrid dream to-night, and you'll wake up and long for a angel to be close to you, and he won't be!"

When she was gone, Freda said:

"If you don't believe Dreamikins, and all she says, it will be no fun at all, Edmund. Even Miss Fletcher never contradicts her. She's different to anybody we've ever seen. And it seems all true to her, so perhaps it is."

"It's rubbish," said Edmund firmly.

"But grown-up people believe in guardian angels," said Daffy. "Let us ask Nurse."

"Nurse," said Freda, "do people have guardian angels?"

"Yes," said Nurse gravely, "so we're told; and I remember a story about a child that was run over and taken out unhurt from a horse's feet, and she said that a 'beautiful angel had covered her under his wings!'"

"There!" said Daffy, turning triumphantly to Edmund. "Now what do you say? It isn't only Dreamikins, you see!"

But Edmund shook his head scoffingly.

"She's a little humbug," he said. "She's so fond of letters, I shall call her the R.H."

"What's that?" asked Freda.

"Rotten Humbug!" said Edmund.

"That isn't a pretty enough name for her. Daffy and me love Dreamikins. She's always saying things you don't expect."

"You'd better call her Dreamikins," said Daffy; "that's the name that suits her."

"Well, I'll call her B.H.—Baby Humbug. She wears socks; I've never played with a girl in socks before."

And Freda and Daffy thought it wisest to say no more.

CHAPTER XIV

The Fire

IN a few days' time, Edmund had settled down very happily with his cousins. He was out of doors a great deal. Bates took him fishing, and Raikes, the gamekeeper, let him go with him through the woods. Freda and Daffy were almost envious, he was allowed to do so many things that were refused to them. And then they were all invited to spend the afternoon with Dreamikins, and they went through the park, and crawled through the little door, for Nurse let the three of them go alone.

There was no doubt about it that Nurse had a soft spot in her heart for boys. She seemed to think that Edmund was steady and good; but when Nurse was away from him he behaved rather differently. Dreamikins and he were soon the greatest friends, though they disagreed upon nearly every point that was discussed; but Dreamikins always got her way in the end.

Edmund started playing hockey upon the lawn at the Dower House. Fibo lent them some walking-sticks and a tennis ball, and cheered them on from the window of his study, where he lay on his couch watching them. And after tea they roasted chestnuts on the bars of the study fire, and Fibo told them funny stories. When Edmund walked home he said:

"Captain Arnold is just ripping! I wish I lived with him instead of you!"

"You must call him Fibo like we do," said Freda; "and that's rather a rude thing to say to us."

"But I agree with him," said Daffy quickly; "I would much rather live with Fibo than with Nurse. Fibo wants us to be happy and have fun—we can see it in his eyes."

"I mean to have my fireworks soon," said Edmund, very firmly. "Nurse keeps putting off the day, but I shall have them without asking her. Look here! When we go to bed to-night, and Nurse goes down to supper, you come out in the long passage between my room and yours, and I'll let off a cracker. It will be such fun!"

Daffy danced with excitement, and Freda said:

"All right, we will! I wish Dreamikins was with us!"

"We'll go out one night, and let some off outside her window."

"Oh, we couldn't!"

"I could," said Edmund, "and I will. I don't believe Nurse will ever settle the time to have them, so I shall do it without asking."

Freda and Daffy felt very uncomfortable when they were undressing and saying their prayers that night. When Nurse had left them in bed, Freda said:

"I left out 'make me a good girl' in my prayers to-night, because I mean to be wicked—just for once. It's always Nurse makes us wicked, because she tries to keep us from having fun."

"Fibo would say that was a mean excuse," said Daffy, wriggling in her bed.

They both were conscious that they were behaving badly when they crept out of their beds in dressing-gowns and slippers, and went along the passage towards Edmund's room. Nurse and Jane were downstairs. The long passage was only dimly lighted at one end. Edmund was ready. He came out of his room with mischief written all over his face.

"Isn't this ripping?" he said, producing a box of matches in one hand and the cracker in the other.

"What does it do?" asked Freda a little nervously. "Is it like the rockets at the Crystal Palace?"

"No; it leaps and bounds along the ground. I run with it a little way. Now then!" He applied his match, raced along the passage, and then flung it from him. There was an explosion, and then another, and another, as the cracker bounded up and down in the passage, then it leapt over the staircase and fell with a hiss and a bang in the hall. The noise and flames almost frightened the little girls, and then a door burst open below, and the frightened servants, headed by Nurse, came upon the scene. Freda and Daffy fled back to bed and buried their heads under the clothes. Edmund did the same, but Nurse knew he must be the culprit and went straight to his room. She was so angry that she boxed his ears soundly, then pounced upon the small square box of fireworks in his room and carried it off.

"I shall lock these up. Not one of them shall you have again while you stay with us. I'm right down ashamed of you. There was I, thinking you were such a good young gentleman, and you get up to this! Don't you know you might have burned us in our beds?"

Edmund was white with fury. Nurse's quick chastisement had taken him so by surprise that he had not had time to protest or excuse himself. He had never been whipped or struck before, and if Nurse had not gone out of the room so quickly he would have hit her back. The loss of his fireworks made him more furious still. He sprang out of bed, opened his door, and watched where she went.

She walked down the passage to a door rather near the nurseries; she put the box inside, then came out, locked the door, and slipped the key of it in her pocket. It was really a store cupboard where she kept a lot of rubbish that she did not want—brown paper, cardboard boxes, and old rags and her mending-bags.

Then she went into the nurseries and banged the door behind her.

Down the passage crept Edmund, matchbox still in hand.

"Now I will give you something to frighten you, you old brute!" he muttered. "I'll set those fireworks going where they are!"

Without a thought of the possible danger of such a deed, Edmund lighted a screw of paper and stuffed it under the door. He thought it would soon reach the box and explode. He pushed several lighted matches under as well, and then ran back to bed, and waited for the explosion that he felt would follow.

It did not come as soon as he expected. If he had only been inside that cupboard he would have known why. His piece of lighted paper had been more mischievous than he had imagined. It had ignited a roll of soft paper on the floor. The flames had spread from that to other pieces of paper, then the cardboard boxes had caught fire, and soon the store cupboard was a raging furnace.

Then the fireworks exploded, and it was a merciful providence they did. Nurse was preparing to get into bed. She bounced out of her nursery, and saw with horror flames and smoke pouring out of the door close to her. In an instant she had rung all the bells she could lay her hands on, seized hold of Bertie and the little girls, wrapped them in blankets, and dragged them down the passage, calling to Edmund to follow them.

Then ensued an hour of intense horror and confusion. From the big hall below the children watched the flames leaping and bounding round the big gallery. The men were pouring water to extinguish the flames; the stable-boy had ridden off to Cressford for the fire-engine. Nurse was like a distracted person. She had run back to the nurseries when she had got the children safely downstairs, and she had managed to get some of their clothes; but the nursery wing was now blazing fiercely. Purling came up to Nurse very soon.

"You had best take the children to the Dower House. This is no fit place for them. This old house will burn like tinder. It will be as much as we can do, to save the pictures and the plate. I doubt if the firemen will come in time."

So Nurse dressed the children with trembling fingers. Jane was almost in hysterics, and little use at all. Then Nurse hurried them down the avenue. She carried Bertie, and Freda and Daffy and Edmund followed her close behind. Bertie was crying a little, Freda almost enjoying it, and Daffy and Edmund absolutely pale with fright and very silent.

Nurse stopped at the lodge.

"If you weren't so crowded, Mrs. Lane," she said to the lodge-woman, "I would get you to take us in; but you've four children of your own, I know."

Mrs. Lane was wringing her hands in fright and excitement.

"My John is up at the Hall now. Oh, mercy on us, what an awful sight the flames are! I said to 'im when I saw the glare, 'That's the nurseries, and the children will be burnt in their beds.' However did it happen?"

But Nurse pushed on without a word.

As they came near the Dower House Freda spoke in a whisper to Edmund:

"Isn't this fun? What will Fibo and Dreamikins say when they see us come in the middle of the night?"

Edmund looked at her with scared eyes, then he said, "It's all Nurse's fault."

"What is? You don't mean the fire?"

He did not answer, and walked the rest of the way in silence.

It was barely eleven o'clock when they reached the Dower House. Fibo had not gone to bed. He had sent Daw to the Hall with a message to Nurse, so he was not a bit surprised to see her. Mrs. Daw and Carrie were bustling about, making up beds in the spare rooms. They soon had all four children in bed. Mrs. Daw brought them some hot milk to drink. But Dreamikins slept through it all.

Freda and Daffy soon fell asleep. Not so Edmund. He lay awake with wide-open, frightened eyes, listening to the fire-engine when it thundered past, and to the running steps and voices of the villagers, who were all roused from their sleep and eager to help up at the Hall.

When daylight came, he was at last asleep, worn out by his fears and remorse.

Directly Dreamikins was awake, and was told by Annette the events of the evening before, she ran into the room where Freda and Daffy were sleeping. They were in a big bed together.

"Oh," she cried, springing upon the bed in the greatest excitement, "why wasn't I woked? Did you really come in the middle of the night? Er might have woked me. I do hope he doesn't go back to heaven when I aren't looking at him! Do tell me all about it!"

Freda and Daffy were only half awake, but Dreamikins thumped their pillows, and almost dragged them out of bed.

"Do tell me! Were you nearly burnt to ashes? Did you jump out of the windows? Is your house all burnt up?"

Then she was told as much as her little friends knew. In the morning light, with Dreamikins' happy rosy face close to them, their misfortune did not seem so terrible as it did the night before.

They all went to the window to see if there was anything left of the Hall. All they could see was some smoke coming up through the trees; no part of the house was visible.

"Fancy!" said Freda. "If it's burnt up, all our toys and clothes and story-books will be gone. What shall we do?"

"We might live in a caravan in the park till it's built up again!" said Daffy joyously.

"Oh, Nurse will simply tear us back to London! I know she will," said Freda.

"No; you'll stay here. We'll squeeze in beautifully, and if there's no room for the H.D. she can go to London and leave you here."

Annette and Nurse both appeared now at the door. Nurse looked quite old and shaken. Poor Nurse! All night she had lain awake wondering if it had been her fault—whether there had been any matches half-lighted that she put in with the fireworks so hurriedly.

Annette took Dreamikins off to be dressed. Freda and Daffy eagerly asked Nurse for news.

"It's the nursery wing that is burnt. They stopped the fire before it got to the rest of the house, but the library below the nursery is very much damaged. They saved the pictures and some of the books, but a great many of them are destroyed."

"Oh, if it's only those old books!" said Freda. "Mums will never read them, nor shall we, so it doesn't matter. Nurse, what shall we do now? And is our toy cupboard burnt?"

"Be quiet now, and don't worry me with questions. I've a splitting headache, and what your mother will say I don't know. It's a mercy we weren't burnt in our beds!"

When Miss Fletcher arrived that morning, she found her little pupils almost too excited to do lessons. They wanted to go and look at the burnt house; but this was not allowed, and Nurse begged Miss Fletcher to keep them in the schoolroom. She asked if Bertie might be kept there too, as she was going up to the Hall at once. Miss Fletcher willingly agreed.

Edmund made himself scarce. He had been very quiet all breakfast-time, and had gone out to the stables to see Shylock directly afterwards. There he made friends with the lad who had succeeded Michael, by name Hal Brown. Hal expressed his opinion that "somebody like those good-for-nothing suffragettes had set the Hall on fire."

"And if they get cotched they'll be taken to prison," he said.

"Will they really?" asked Edmund, trembling.

Hal nodded.

"Our policeman and a lot from Cressford are going round now trying to get the rights of it, and find out the one who did it."

Edmund left the stable silently. He wandered out into the garden and round and round the paths. Even Grinder, following him patiently in hopes of a game, could not gain his attention. Fibo lay by his study window and saw him there. He tapped sharply on the window-pane and beckoned to him.

Edmund appeared at the study door a few minutes afterwards, quite expecting to find the room full of policemen.

Fibo called to him cheerfully.

"Come and amuse me," he said; "we're the two men in the house who have nothing to do. Neither of us are doing lessons just now, are we?"

Edmund tried to smile. He sat down on the edge of a chair by the fire and looked across at Fibo in an uncomfortable fashion.

And then Fibo suddenly held out his hand.

"Come close to me, old chap, and tell me all about it. Don't be afraid. Honour bright, I'll try to help you!"

There was magic in Fibo's look and smile.

With a deep-drawn sob Edmund scuttled over to the couch. Fibo put his arm round him, and then he laid his brown head against the kind shoulder, and began to sob as if his heart would break.

"I—I—shall have to go to prison," he sobbed, "because I—I did it."

"I guessed you did. Nurse's story seems rather confused. We won't think about prison. Just tell me exactly what you did. Be a man and own up."

Edmund told him, and Fibo listened silently.

"Didn't you know that lighted paper and matches would be likely to burn?" he asked, when Edmund had come to a stop.

"I only meant to burn the fireworks."

"But fireworks in a cupboard mean great danger."

"I didn't stop to think. I only wanted to frighten her. She boxed my ears! Will you have to give me up to the police?"

"I think you will have to tell your story to a policeman," said Fibo slowly. He rang his bell, and asked Daw to find Sergeant Ross who had come over from Cressford to make inquiries about the fire.

Edmund stood, white and trembling, by Fibo's side. Fibo patted him on the back in a comforting way.

"You've told the truth, little man; and you did not mean to burn the house down, did you? It will be a lesson for life. Now buck up and tell Sergeant Ross what you have told me."

In a very short time a constable was ushered into the room, and Fibo said:

"I want you to hear this young gentleman's account of the origin of the fire last night. He is very frightened and sorry, but I've told him that he must tell you himself about it."

Edmund clenched his fists, threw up his head, and fought bravely with his tears. Then he told the constable what he had done; and that good man shook his head.

"What a lot of mischief some of you young gentlemen do with your fireworks! Well, I'm glad to hear the rights of it. I'm thankful to say the greater part of the house is saved. I conclude, sir,—" here he turned to Fibo,—"I conclude, sir, that Mrs. Harrington has been communicated with?"

"We have sent a wire."

After a few more words, the constable left the room.

"Is he going to do anything to me?" asked poor Edmund.

"No, my boy. He sees you have been punished quite enough by the consequences of your mischief. But you'll have to tell Nurse. Better go over to the Hall now and find her, and get it over; and then come back to me. I shan't forsake you, you may be sure!"

Edmund gasped out:

"Must I go to Nurse? Won't you tell her for me?"

"No, I won't. For you must show your pluck, and be willing to own yourself the culprit. Cut along!"

Edmund left the room without a word. He seized his cap from the hall peg, and raced along the road, arriving at the Hall hot and breathless. It was some time before he could find Nurse. She and Purling were together in his pantry; she had found that there was literally nothing saved from the nurseries, and now she and Purling were talking together, discussing all that had passed. When she saw Edmund, she turned upon him angrily:

"And you're responsible for it all, Master Edmund. What are you doing here?"

"I've come to tell you that I did it," said Edmund, in quavering tones. "You made me angry, and I stuffed some lighted paper under the door to make the fireworks go off!"

Nurse gave an exclamation of horror.

"You wicked child! And here have I been blaming myself for what I never did! Now you'll just come to Captain Arnold, and tell him that it's you who've burnt us to the ground! And we'll tell the police, and it's to be hoped you'll get a thorough good thrashing!"

"I've told Captain Arnold and the police," said Edmund; "and I've said I'm sorry, and I can't say more!"

Then he ran away down the avenue as fast as he could, and hardly drew his breath till he was in Fibo's study again. He felt that Nurse was more formidable than any one else.

CHAPTER XV

Separation

IF it had not been for Fibo, Edmund would not have known how to get through the next few days. Fibo and Dreamikins, in turns, heartened and comforted him. Even Freda and Daffy were struck with horror when they heard what he had done. The servants and the villagers soon knew who the culprit was; and no words could be strong enough for their opinion of Edmund. Mr. Denton, the family lawyer, arrived on the scene the next day with the agent of the estate; and in the afternoon both Mrs. Harrington and her sister, Mrs. Walton, came down from town. They were able to sleep at the Hall, but the children still stayed on at the Dower House. Fibo said he would not let them go, and Dreamikins was delighted to have them.

Edmund dreaded meeting his mother. An hour before she was expected to arrive, Dreamikins found him sitting on a wheelbarrow, behind a shed in the garden, biting his nails, and looking as miserable as any little boy could look.

Dreamikins sat down by his side.

"What a nice seat you have! Shall we wheel each other about in the wheelbarrow?"

Edmund shook his head.

"I wish I was dead!" he said.

"So do I, often," said Dreamikins cheerfully; "but Er says God doesn't want us just yet. I s'pose we have a good deal to do for Him when we get old. But Freda and Daffy and me are getting on. We've done an awful lot of things lately."

Then she cuddled against him, and put up one of her soft little hands and stroked his cheek.

"Poor boy! I really are sorry for you. It was a big mistake, wasn't it? And what I'm so sorry for is, we shall never see those beautiful fireworks! But never mind, dear, you tolded the truth, didn't you? Fibo said he could forgive anyfing in a boy who tolded the truth. Do you know, I've been thinking that Er left me, and went along to help you. God's angels are always busy in danger time, and a fire is danger time, isn't it? He helped you all to get downstairs quick before the fire caught you. I was scolding him a little, because he didn't wake me when it all happened. But that's where he was, so he couldn't wake me."

DREAMIKINS FOUND EDMUND SITTING LOOKING AS MISERABLE
AS ANY LITTLE BOY COULD LOOK.

"I don't care anything about angels," said Edmund; "but Mums will think it awful to burn Aunt Helen's house. I don't want to see her."

"I'll stand by you," said Dreamikins sturdily. "When she comes, I'll keep close to you. I won't let her scold you."

Edmund felt sure that a boy ought not to look to a girl to shield him in such a crisis. But his good opinion of himself had vanished; he felt very small, and very frightened. And when he heard the carriage arrive, and the bustle in the house, and when Freda came running out into the garden calling, "Edmund, Edmund, where are you? Aunt Frances and Mums are here, and they want you," he rose to his feet and walked into the house, holding Dreamikins by the hand, and feeling as if he would like the earth to swallow him up. They were all in Fibo's study. Mrs. Harrington looked very sternly at her small nephew; his mother did not hold out her hands to him as she usually did. It was Dreamikins who spoke first.

"We've comed in as quick as we could. Edmund wishes he was dead. But I'm sure God doesn't want him just yet, and we all feel very sorry about the house, and very, very sorry that the fireworks is wasted, and you won't be angry with Edmund; he didn't mean to do it. That old Nurse wanted a frightening, she had been so unkind to him. He only meant just to frighten her!"

She stood in front of Edmund with hot cheeks and anxious eyes. Then she suddenly stepped up to Mrs. Walton, and gave her one of her angelic smiles.

"Will you kiss your poor little boy? I are so sorry for him, he is so mis'able to-day."

Mrs. Walton began to smile.

"You are a first-rate little pleader," she said; "but I assure you I'm the most miserable person of you all to-day! Come here, Edmund! We've heard all about it; but you must ask your Aunt Helen to forgive you, not me."

And then Mrs. Harrington drew Edmund towards her and kissed him.

"You didn't mean it. I know that. I'm sure this will be a lesson to you never to play with fire again."

Edmund began to sob.

And then Dreamikins ran out of the room, and finding Daffy in the passage, seized hold of her, and danced down the length of the hall.

"I always cry myself when other peoples cry, and I aren't going to cry this afternoon. Oh, Daffy, do beg and pray your mother not to take you back to town. What shall I do if you go?"

It was not much good begging and praying. The very next day Mrs. Walton took Edmund away with her; and Mrs. Harrington said that Nurse must bring the children back to London in three days' time. They were going to stay in a private hotel till their mother could get her town house again. Freda and Daffy were very unhappy at going. It would be a long time before the Hall could be repaired and rebuilt, and Nurse said she would be glad to get away from it. The little girls went to say good-bye to their friend Mrs. Bone, and several other people in the village. The last day came; they gathered round Fibo's fire in his study for a good talk.

Dreamikins was very grave. She sat in a little cushioned chair of her own by Fibo's side.

"If it wasn't for you, Fibo dear," she said, "I should be rolling and kicking on the floor in a—an—agony!"

"Yes," said Freda mournfully, "that's just it; you've got Fibo, and we haven't. We're much worse off than you are."

"But you have each other," said Dreamikins. "I'm only a one, not a two."

"You've got your angels to talk to," said Daffy.

Dreamikins put her head on one side and considered.

"I think," she said slowly, "that I'm getting rather tarred of Er. He's too heavy and grave."

"Oh," cried Freda protestingly, "you haven't had him any time; you get tired so quickly!"

"Well, I'll see. I won't send him away to-day. I'll write a letter and tell you when I do."

"That's the only thing we can do—write letters," said Daffy; "and they are so difficult to write. I expect you'll forget all about us, Dreamikins, when we're away."

"No; I promise truefully I won't. Fibo will remind me."

"Fibo won't forget us, will you?" said Freda. "And do you think you could send us a letter, Fibo, once now and then—one of your funny ones, you know, with little pictures in the middle?"

"Yes, I dare say I shall be able to manage that," said Fibo, with his kind smile; "and you'll soon be coming down to the Hall again. It isn't good-bye for ever; so cheer up."

"It's all Edmund's fault," said Freda; "but he was so sorry I suppose we must forgive him. And, Fibo, when you write to us, you might just put in a word to help us to be good. We seemed to be getting on nicely, Daffy and me; and now we shan't have anybody to help us."

"Nurse tries to make us good," said Daffy thoughtfully, "but her goodness is quite different to yours, Fibo. You and Dreamikins are always so happy. Nurse's goodness is horrid stuff."

"Now what is it to be good, I wonder?" said Fibo.

"Oh," said Dreamikins quickly, "to feed the hungry and thirsty, and visit Michael in prison, and take in strangers, and clothe ragged children, and visit poor sick people."

"Is that all? You can do all that, and yet be thoroughly naughty. To be good is to please God."

"Oh, Fibo dear," said Dreamikins, shaking her head at him, "nobody could be good like God, except Jesus, could they?"

"Jesus Christ was God; He came into our world to show us how to be good. If we try to be like Him, we shall be good."

"But, Fibo, isn't all that we have been doing any use?" asked Freda.

"Of course it is. But to be obedient to Nurse, and unselfish and kind to each other, is quite as important."

"Daffy and me feel we'd like to please God, but we don't care about pleasing Nurse—not always," said Freda.

"And that is just where you are wrong. If you are learning to love the Lord Who loves you, you will only please Him by keeping His commandments. And one of His commandments is, 'Obey them that have the rule over you.' I should like you to practise this verse: 'If ye love Me, keep My commandments.' You have been ready enough to try to follow out some of the commands in the Bible. Visiting the sick and helping the poor is all right. But if you never left your nursery, and could do neither of those, there are other commands you could keep."

"But then we don't know them all, and we forget so."

"Ask God to remind you, and to tell you."

"You'd better have an angel," suggested Dreamikins.

Fibo shook his head at her.

"I don't know that I approve of your angels," he said. "You seem to do pretty well what you like with them. And they get between you and God."

The children were silent. It was not often they had such a grave talk as this.

Then Dreamikins jumped up, and put her little arms round Fibo's neck.

"You are the darlingest, goodest man in the world," she said, "but I don't care so much for you when you're so solemn. And we'll all cheer up, and you must tell us a story that will make us scream and scream with laughter. Now begin!"

So Fibo began one, and before long the little girls were laughing almost as much as Dreamikins wished. When they went to bed that night, Dreamikins was allowed to sit for ten minutes by the bedside, before Annette came for her. There was a fire in the room, and the three little girls were alone. Dreamikins, in her pale blue dressing-gown and golden curls, looked a perfect picture.

"I shall never leave Fibo till Mummy comes for me," said Dreamikins thoughtfully; "but when she does, I'll get her to take me to London, and we'll look in upon you. We shall come up in a cab, and you'll be having tea in the nursery—that's when I like you best; and Nurse will say, 'Here comes that dreadful child. I do wish you'd never known her.'"

"And we shall scream with delight when we see you; but it will be ages and ages before that happens. And perhaps you will have altered then. Your hair will have gone out of curl, and you'll be walking instead of dancing, and you'll shake hands very stiffly, and say, 'I'm very pleased to see you, my dears,' in a prim and proper way!"

Dreamikins shook her head vehemently.

"I never will be stiff, never; my bones couldn't be; I can't keep them still enough. It's been lovely knowing you, and I don't know which I like best."

"Like us both the same," said Freda; "Daffy and me are just alike, Dreamikins. We'll look-out for people who want clothes and food in London; there are sure to be some. And you'll go and see Mrs. Bone as well as your old man, won't you?"

"Yes, I will; I like seeing people. When I grow up I shall try to get to know everybody I ever see. It's so interressing. Here's Annette; hide me, quick!"

In an instant she had scrambled into their big bed, and wriggled down in the middle of it out of sight.

"Has Miss Emmeline gone?" asked Annette.

Freda and Daffy giggled. Annette, knowing Dreamikins' ways, looked under the bed, then Dreamikins jumped out of the bed on her back. Annette screamed, and Nurse came in. She had been busy packing, and was looking tired and cross.

"Come," she said, "this won't do; my young ladies must go to sleep—we can't have games here."

"It's the last night, H.D.," said Dreamikins. Then she took hold of Nurse's hand.

"You won't forget me, will you?" she said. "I don't like being forgotted. And I'll bring you a present when I come and see you in London. What would you like?"

Nurse looked down upon the child gravely.

"If you behave prettily, that is all I want, Miss Emmeline. Your uncle spoils you, and Annette is no disciplinarian."

"Oh, what's that?"

But Nurse would not answer, and Dreamikins was led off to bed.

Early the next morning, Nurse and her little charges departed. There were tears at the end. Dreamikins stood on the doorstep, and waved her tiny handkerchief till the carriage was out of sight; then she went mournfully into her uncle's study.

"They're gone, Fibo dear, and you and me are all alone."

"Miss Fletcher will be here directly."

"Oh, but she doesn't belong to us, and Freda and Daffy seemed as if they did."

"Well, we did manage to get along before they came," said Fibo; "but I quite agree that it's a sad business when friends leave us."

"So it is. And we'll have to take a lot of drives to Cressford, Fibo, and have buns in the tea-shop, or my heart will ache."

"We mustn't let it do that. But my poor bones don't like the cold, and a very bright thought has come into my head. What do you think of a nice new saddle being put on Shylock, and Dreamikins perched on the top of it?"

Dreamikins burrowed her head in his shoulder with a little squeal of ecstasy.

"I believe Er poked that thought in your head! He's been very sorry for me, and he's so fond of me that he said he'd think of something nice for me if only I didn't send him away just yet. Why, Fibo, it will be lovely! Do you really and truefully mean it?"

"Yes, I do, if you'll promise me not to try to ride alone. Daw knows all about ponies, and he says he will be able to take you out. Shylock is so quiet that you will be quite safe with him."

"Oh, Fibo dear, what a darling you are!"

Dreamikins went off to her lessons in great excitement. Miss Fletcher did not expect too much from her that morning; she knew how she would miss her little companions, and was extra kind and cheerful.

In a very few days a letter arrived addressed to, "Miss Emmeline Broughton." Dreamikins opened it with trembling fingers, and got her uncle to read it to her.

"OUR DARLING DREAMIKINS,—We are going to write between us, and you need not guess who does it, because Freda writes best, and Daffy spells best, and we've got our spelling-book and dictionary on the table, and Nurse tells us some. We are not doing lessons yet. Our governess is away. We are in a big hotel, and there are two boys who play with us and Bertie. We are going to give a penny to an old flowerwoman to get a cup of tea. She says she suffers from thirst, but tea does not agree with her; but she will get a glass of something else instead, and we are wondering if she is like your man, and means beer. Dear Dreamikins, we miss you so. Tell Fibo we are trying to keep the Commandments, but Nurse makes us knit mittens for soldiers, and we would rather do frocks for Miss Fletcher's sister's children; but we have to do Nurse's way. Nurse says a goat is not wickeder than a sheep except that it is mischievous. She says we are more like goats than sheep. We asked her which she was, and she said she wasn't either of them. Ask Fibo where she'll stand when they are sorted out. But she lets us put our pennies in a box for orphan children, to get them into a Home. Daffy and me are going to the Zoo with a man who is our Cousin John. He is in the War. He says they sent him home because the shells are too fond of him. He has a hole in his arm; he showed it to us. Edmund has gone back to school. Mums says he must not come to stay with us again. Kiss Shylock for us, and give Fibo a good big hug—one for Daffy and one for me. When we grow up we mean to build a house to take in strangers. Daffy and me saw a poor old man who was blue-coloured, he was so cold. He was selling papers. Nurse would not let us speak to him, but we kissed our hands to him. There is a waiter here who has sixteen children. Would you not like so many brothers and sisters to play with? We would. Good-bye, darling Dreamikins. Have you still got Er? And please tell Fibo we are looking out for a letter with pictures from him. We love him next to you. We think he has an angel's heart, he is so kind.—Your loving friends,

"FREDA and DAFFY.

"P.S.—We told Cousin John about the little door, and the day we first found it. He said it was a wonderful find, and we think it was too."

Of course Dreamikins never rested till she had written a letter too.

"MY SWEET FREDA AND DAFFY,—Fibo is writing this for me in my very own words, for I can't do it as quick as I ought, and the pen won't go so fast as my tongue. I have heaps and heaps and heaps to tell you. Kontities has happened. I must tell you, I nearly went to heaven the other day. Fancy, I might have been there to-day instead of writing this letter—having fun with all the angels and harps! But Er and a strange man stopped me going. I was walking home from the post office, and in the lane a dear, tiny little mouse was lying in the middle of the road. I was just esgamining him very carefully, when all in a minute a great big motorcar came rushing at me, and it made such a noise that my head felt silly, and I didn't know what to do. And then I was snatched out of the way by a man. Er gave me a pull too, and my hat flew off, and, do you know, when the car stopped, there it was in a mash in the road! Fancy, if I had been mashed like my hat! But it wouldn't have hurt my soul a tiny little bit. Fibo says I must never stop in the middle of the road again, even if I see a dead camel or effelunt. I like Mrs. Bone. I wented to see her, and she made me laugh. Fibo and I are going to be dreffully busy. We have some darling little robins who hop and skip on the window-ledge. We are making a little house for them, and we mean to put their breakfes in it. It is made of wood, and is called Redbreast Inn. It has a big, open door, and a red roof with a chimley, and Mrs. Robin will want to live in it. We had some snow yesterday. I think it is the little angels tearing the clouds into bits and throwing them down for fun, but Er shakes his head and says they never tear things in heaven. I am making a coat for Grinder, he is so cold, and then I am going to make one for Drab and for Whiskers; they do look so funny! I tied a pocky-hanker round Drab, and she arched her back and sweared. Fibo lets me make hot toast for tea all myself. And we think a Pixie lives in the chimley; there is a coorious noise when we listen, and Mrs. Daw says it may be a bird, but Fibo and me knows better. He is called Shicketty Shock, and he is hiding his bags of gold there. One day he'll tumble down, and then I'll catch him quick. Miss Fletcher and me miss you very much, and she lets me put your two chairs up, and then I pretend you're there and I say things to you. Last night I had a dream. Fibo says it was a dream, but I think Er pulled a bit of me out of my body and we flew to London. I thought you was both with me talking in a shop full of Christmas things. Do you remember doing it? How many kisses shall I make on the paper for you? Freda is first, then Daffy. Fibo is going to write to you all hisself soon. Good-bye. Good-bye. And don't you think this is a nice long letter from your—

"DREAMIKINS.

"P.S.—This is a sekret I am riting it myself. Er is two grav for me and he says God wants him to cary up por solders in batle so he is going to moro. I am so glad. I am going to have a little old mery angel wuman, she will mak me laff like Mrs. Bone only much beter. I will tell you how we get on togever in my nex leter."

Dreamikins got her new angel; so she informed her uncle, and she named her Meribah. Fibo told her that the name did not suit an angel, that it meant "quarrelling" or "strife." Dreamikins was undaunted.

"She does quarrel with Satan when he tries to come near me. She pushes him away. And I like the name, Fibo, because she is so merry."

Meribah lived with Dreamikins quite a long time, and then one day, when Fibo and his little niece were talking together, Dreamikins looked up at him with soft, pitying eyes:

"What a pity it is, Fibo, that you have no nice angels to talk to you, and 'muse you when I aren't here," she said.

"Well," said Fibo, leaning back in his chair, "I think we may have our guardian angels in the same way that you have; but when you get older, my Dreamikins, I hope your heart and thoughts will be occupied with Somebody better than angels. I think angels may guard and keep our bodies from dangers, but I have Somebody Who guards and keeps my soul—yes—and Who takes possession of it, if I am willing."

"Who?" Dreamikins asked in a breathless whisper.

"Do you remember the picture in your nursery, where our Lord is standing outside a door knocking at it?"

Dreamikins nodded.

"Yes. He has a lamp in His hand."

"That's a picture of a person's heart. I haven't said much to you about your angels, because you're only a little girl. But when you grow bigger, you'll feel that nobody will satisfy you but the Lord Jesus Himself. Angels can't get the victory over our evil tempers; they can't conquer the Devil when he fights with us, but Jesus can. And His Holy Spirit lives in people's hearts, and comforts them and helps them. And if I have the very best Friend on earth to live with me, I don't think so much about angels. I am content, more than content, to have Him!"

Dreamikins put her head on one side, and began blinking her eyes very fast, a sure sign that she was thinking deeply. Then she clasped her small hands eagerly and leant towards her uncle:

"But, Fibo dear, I 'sure you I want to have the bestest I can have, without waiting to grow bigger. It does take so long to grow. I think if I was watered like the flowers it would be quicker, but Annette won't do it for me, and she even won't let me water my head in the bath! But I'm afraid Jesus would be so shocked to live inside me, and I couldn't talk to Him like I do to my angels, could I? It would be so very dirrispeckful."

Fibo did not answer. He liked Dreamikins to do some thinking sometimes.

She said presently:

"Of course Jesus is the Best, the very bestest Best. And I always mean to have the best of everyfing if I can get it. And my angels do dis'point me dreffully. I get so tarred of them. Would He really come right inside of me, Fibo dear, where I could feel Him when I went to bed and it was dark?"

"Listen, Dreamikins. This is what the Lord Jesus says. You can find it in your Bible, if you like: 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him.' And another time He said to His disciples: 'If a man love Me, he will keep My word, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him.'"

"But I'm not a man, Fibo dear. I'm 'fraid, after all, it doesn't fit."

"It means everybody—men and women, boys and girls."

Dreamikins' eyes grew bigger and bigger, with the big thoughts behind them.

Then like a flash of light she vanished from the room, and Fibo was left alone.

In about ten minutes' time she reappeared. This time she walked very softly, with her finger on her mouth. She came up to her uncle, then put her hands behind her and said in an awed whisper:

"I've been talking to Jesus upstairs. I got into a cupboard, like He tells us to. I thought I must be most partic'lar, for I reely think it's too grand to be true! But, Fibo, you telled me the truth. He says He'll be very happy to do it." She paused, then took hold of her uncle by the lappet of his coat, and went on gravely:

"Of course I just tolded God I was much 'bliged for all the angels He sent me. But I'd had enough of them. And He said, 'Very well.' And then I just sat down on the floor and waited for Jesus to come into my heart. But He didn't come, and so I comed down to you; but God seemed to tell me Jesus would come before I go to bed to-night."

Again Fibo felt speechless, as he so often did when Dreamikins talked.

Then Annette came in to take her for a walk, and Fibo did not see her till after her tea. He happened to look-out into the garden, and saw Dreamikins standing in the middle of the path shaking herself most violently. The whole of her little body was in a quiver; her hair was whirling round her head, and both hands were shaking her pinafore and frock and petticoats, as if she were shaking her handkerchief out of the window.

He tapped on the window-pane and called out:

"Come indoors, Dreamikins. What are you doing? You make me giddy to look at you."

But Dreamikins stopped for a minute, then she called out cheerfully:

"I'm just shaking old angel Meribah out of me; she doesn't want to go, and so she sticks!"

Then she went on shaking herself again.

Her uncle checked his laughter. He looked on at Dreamikins' antics, and watched for the next step. Suddenly she stopped, then threw up her arms towards the sky, and looked upwards with the most ecstatic smile upon her face. And then very gravely and seriously she walked back into the house. Fibo waited patiently. It was not long before she appeared at his door, and then she came in on tiptoe, with shining eyes. Walking straight up to him, she climbed upon his knees and put her arms round his neck. She held him tight for a minute without speaking a word, then she put her little mouth to his ear and whispered:

"Jesus Christ has done it. He really has comed into me, and He's going to lock the Devil out, so I shall never be naughty again—never!"

Fibo shook his head in a perplexed fashion.

"I don't think you will always be good, Dreamikins. I am afraid sometimes you will shut the Lord out of His rightful place, and then you will be naughtier than ever. But I hope that will happen less and less frequently."

"I shall have to walk on tiptoe always," said Dreamikins, taking her arms away from his neck and settling herself comfortably on his knee. "But it's a very wunnerful thing to happen to me, Fibo. It's a—don't you call it a mirricle?"

"Yes, I think it is always a miracle," said Fibo gravely.

"And of course," Dreamikins went on, dropping her awestruck tone and speaking in her natural eager little voice,—"of course I had to empty myself, before Jesus could come to me. That's why I went into the garding to do it, so that Meribah could get up easily to heaven. She was quite differcult to get rid of, do you know? And I told her to make haste. She was actooly keeping God waiting! And then she flew up quite frightened. And I watched her till she was out of sight. And then I was ready, so I went upstairs and knelt down in the cupboard, and then you know—then it happened!" After a minute's silence she said:

"I'd like to write to Freda and Daffy and tell them about it. They never did believe in my angels—not properly, but they'll have to believe in Jesus going about with me everywhere, because it says so in the Bible! Can I do it now?"

Fibo was quite willing to help her, and the next morning Freda and Daffy got another letter from their little friend; but it was a short one.

"MY DARLING FRIENDS,—I've just done a most wunnerful thing. I've talked with Fibo, and angels are mostly for babies, and they aren't the Best, so I've sent Meribah back, and Jesus Christ is actooly coming His Own Self to live in my heart. And He has come, and I'm so happy I don't know what to do. It's almost as good as heaven. I can't quite see Him, but when I shut my eyes I do. And He's going to be with me for ever and ever. Good-bye.—Your loving       DREAMIKINS.

"P.S.—I've said to God that if His angels are dis'pointed they can look after me when I'm asleep. But when I'm wide awake, I'd rather, oh, much rather have Jesus Christ. Now I feel the grandest, greatest person in the world."

When Freda and Daffy read this letter Freda said:

"It is like Dreamikins, and yet it isn't as funny as she really is. I like to see her when she talks, her eyes laugh so!"

"There will never be anybody again like her wherever we go," said Daffy. "If we sorted out the whole world there couldn't be!"

"I suppose," said Freda slowly, "God took extra trouble when He made her."

"And what a very good thing it was when we went through that little door."

"Yes," said Freda, with a smile at the memory of it. "That door led us to Fibo and Dreamikins."

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Table of Contents

- DREAMIKINS
- CHAPTER I
- CHAPTER II
- CHAPTER III
- CHAPTER IV
- CHAPTER V
- CHAPTER VI
- CHAPTER VII
- CHAPTER VIII
- CHAPTER IX
- CHAPTER X
- CHAPTER XI
- CHAPTER XII
- CHAPTER XIII
- CHAPTER XIV
- CHAPTER XV
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE