The Gap in the Fence

"Oh, Una, Una! stop!" cried Norah. "You are spoiling all your wishes saying them out loud like that. Fairies never grant people's wishes if they call them out loud for everyone to hear."

But whether there were any fairies hiding in the wood that afternoon or not, at any rate one of little Una's wishes came true, as we shall see.

CHAPTER V.

HAPPY DAYS.

Nearly every day, after that first meeting, the children played with Una in the wood and joined her in the glen.

"The glen's nicer now it's Una's than when it was ours," said Dan one day, as he sat munching one of the nice little sugar cakes which Marie had made for them that morning.

"It wasn't ever ours really," said Norah.

"Well, anyway, it's Una's now, and it's much nicer," said Dan, looking gravely into the basket Una held out to him, and choosing a round, pink cake with a cherry in the middle.

Then one day something still nicer came to pass. The foreign gentleman came to call on Mr. Carew, to ask if he would allow his children to come every day and have lessons with his little girl.

The children were delighted when they heard of this. They had met the foreign gentleman in the lane as they were coming home from a walk with Rose, and they had wondered whether he had been to see their father.

"I hope he has not been to say we mustn't go and play with Una in the glen any more," Dan had said; but they had no idea what the foreign gentleman's visit had really been about until their father told them the next morning, after breakfast.

Mr. and Mrs. Carew had needed a little time in which to think about and talk over Monsieur Gen's proposal, and they did not want the children to know anything about it until all was settled.

For the last year—ever since Mary and Ruth had gone to school, and since Miss Rice, the governess who had been with them for over six years, had got married—the younger children had only had lessons when their mother or father could find time to teach them.

The school fees of the four elder children came to so large a sum of money that the vicar could not afford to have a governess at home for Norah and Tom and Dan; and as both Mr. and Mrs. Carew led very busy lives, lessons had sometimes to be put on one side altogether, and the children were beginning to forget a great deal which they had learned a year ago with Miss Rice.

The foreign gentleman's offer, therefore, had been a great relief to Mr. and Mrs. Carew, and the children were delighted at the idea of going to the Grange every day to do their lessons with Una.

"And we shall be able to tell Una more about the Bible now, shan't we, father?" said Norah. "She wants to know such a lot more. Nobody has ever told her about Christmas before—that it is Jesus Christ's birthday, I mean; and that that is why everyone is so happy then and tries to make everyone else happy, just like He used to do. And she didn't know God made the world, or that He takes care of us, or anything."

"Poor little girl!" said Mrs. Carew.

"Poor child, indeed!" said the vicar. "I wonder why Monsieur Gen——," and then he stopped suddenly, thinking, no doubt, that the children were quite curious enough already about their foreign neighbours. "After all, it is not for us to pry into other people's affairs," he said, with a smile. "Teach little Una all you can about the Bible and God's love, Norah; but do not worry her with questions about her father and his doings."

A week later the children went to the Grange for their first morning's lessons with Una.

"I feel just as if we were going into a magic palace," whispered Norah, as they waited for the door to be opened.

"And as if we should be turned into snakes and wolves and all sorts of horrid animals, before we came out again," said Tom.

"Or into one of those marble statues," whispered Dan, as they followed the servant across the hall to the foot of the staircase, where another servant met them and led the way upstairs. At the end of a long passage he paused and flung open a door, standing aside for the children to pass.

"Here lives the wizard!" murmured Tom under his breath; but it was only little Una who advanced to meet them across the big, bare room, bowing primly to each of the three in turn, then turning to introduce the English governess who was seated at a table near the window.

"Miss Berrill, my good English gouvernante," she said; and Miss Berrill smiled at the child's introduction, and told her to go with her little friends to take off their hats and coats, and that then she would try to find out how much they all knew.

The children thoroughly enjoyed those morning lessons and the hour of play afterwards. Week after week glided by until the Christmas holidays drew near, and pale, silent, little Una seemed turned into a different child.

In vain had the children begged for her to spend Christmas Day with them at the vicarage.

"My daughter does not visit," Monsieur Gen had replied; and the children felt that there was nothing more to be said.

They still stood very much in awe of Una's tall grave father, who looked in upon them now and again while they were at lessons or play, but never stopped to chat or romp with his little girl; and merely bent his head in acknowledgment of the stiff little curtsey with which Una always greeted him in obedience to Marie's directions.

On the afternoon of Christmas Day the children carried a small parcel of home-made gifts and almond toffee to Una; then stayed with her to sing some Christmas hymns and carols, and to tell her over again that wonderful old story of the first Christmas morning so many years ago.

With eager face and hungry eyes Una drank in Norah's words, turning to Tom every now and then for the explanation of some difficult word, or to Dan for a description of that Eastern stable; and long after the children had gone back to the merry home circle where "Peace" and "Goodwill," welcome angels, hovered around, the little foreigner sat gazing at the simple print, in its plain oak frame, of the Magi worshipping the Infant Christ,—a gift from the vicar to his children's friend.

January, February, March, April passed by, and one sunny morning in May Una awoke with the feeling that something very wonderful had happened the day before.

For a few moments she could not think what it was, as she lay listening dreamily to the songs of the birds outside; then all at once she remembered.

The day before she had been for a long walk with old Marie through the wood. Neither of them had ever been so far before; but Una had coaxed her old Nurse first up one winding path, then down another—begging her to walk just as far as the bluebells they could see in the distance, or to the tall fir-trees where they could listen to the wood-pigeons cooing overhead, or "just a little further," on the chance of catching a glimpse of the cuckoo they had heard calling all the afternoon—until old Marie had sat down on the stump of a tree, fanning herself with a handkerchief, and declaring that she could walk no more.

"Just a little further—only a little way more, Marie, please," Una begged. "I only want to see if the white flowers over there are the dog-daisies Tom told me about. Such a funny name, isn't it? Daisies which belong to the dogs!" And the little girl laughed merrily.

"No more, no more, Miss Una," the old Frenchwoman said. "You may run on by yourself for a little way, like a good child, if you keep within call." And Marie closed her eyes drowsily—quite overcome with the long walk and the warm afternoon—while Una hunted for birds' nests among the bushes, and added more blossoms to the already large bunch of flowers she had picked as she came along.

She had wandered further away from old Marie than she knew, when she came suddenly to a high, ivy-covered wall, and was able to go no further.

On either side it stretched away from her. The little girl was not able to see where the wall began or where it ended, and she thought that this must be the end of the wood at last, for the wall was so high that she could not see if trees grew on the other side of it.

Presently she began to hunt for birds' nests among the ivy—Tom had told her once that wrens and robins often built in ivy-covered walls—and then it was that she had made the wonderful discovery.

There, in the old brick wall, half hidden by the ivy, was a tiny oak door.

"The door to fairyland!" Una said to herself.

Then old Marie had called to her through the trees, and Una dropped the curtain of ivy and turned to meet her nurse with flushed cheeks and shining eyes, for had not Norah and Dan told her that only those who found the door to fairyland could enter in? They must not show it to others.

"I'll come by myself to-morrow," the little girl had thought to herself; and she sat up in bed the next morning with a little happy laugh of remembrance.

"I'll be in fairyland to-day," she whispered softly.

CHAPTER VI.

UNA ASKS A QUESTION.

That afternoon, as soon as dinner was over and Marie had settled herself for her afternoon nap, Una slipped through the gap in the fence—how well she knew it now!—and started off by herself to try and find again the door into Fairyland.

On she ran, until she came to a place where three paths met, and was uncertain which to take.

A yellow butterfly, dancing gaily along one of the paths, decided her, and Una followed it gleefully.

"Perhaps it's a fairy sent to meet me," she thought.

At last she came to the stump of a tree where Marie had rested, and from there she soon found her way to the old wall in which was the secret door.

It took her longer to find the door than the little girl had expected. The ivy grew so thickly over the wall that she had to walk quite a long way—pushing aside the branches and peering between the leaves—before she found the little door once more.

Then she pulled away the twisted branches of the ivy which had grown across the door, and turned the handle timidly.

For a moment she thought the door was locked; then she heard a queer sort of grating sound and something fell on the other side of the wall. Una pulled once more, and the door opened slowly towards her.

What the little girl saw on the other side of the wall was so lovely that she gave a gasp of delight, and then stood, quite still, looking through the small doorway.

As far as she could see was a long bower of lovely pink and white flowers. Hundreds of bees hummed amongst the blossoms; but to Una the buzzing sounded like hundreds of tiny voices, and she thought she heard the fairies talking.

"Fairies! Fairies!" she called softly. But no one answered, and very soon the little girl stepped through the doorway and walked down the apple-blossom path, looking from side to side to see if there were any fairies hiding near.

On she went, until the pink and white bower turned into a wide walk with masses of gay May flowers on either side, and this in turn ended in a big square garden with stone walks and bright flower-beds, and a fountain sparkling in the midst.

In the stone basin of the fountain were pretty gold and silver fish.

"Fairy fishes!" Una thought, for she had never seen goldfish before, and she was still bending over the basin when she heard a tap, tap, tap on the stone pathway, and, turning quickly, saw a very small, very old lady coming towards her.

"A fairy godmother," thought Una. "I didn't know they lived in Fairyland."

Then she went to meet the old lady, giving a quaint little curtsey and waiting for her to speak.

"Well, little girl," said the old lady kindly, "and who are you?"

"I'm Una," said the child gravely.

Then she gave a sudden jump in the air.

"Oh, fairy-godmother, how kind of you—there's my puppy dog!" she cried, as a fat retriever puppy gambolled down the path and flung itself playfully upon her.

The old lady looked amused.

"A fairy godmother, am I?" she said, smiling. "What can I do for you, then?"

"Oh, such a lot of things!" said Una. Then a surprised look came into her face: "Why, here's an old gentleman!" she said. "I didn't know there were fairy godfathers too. Do you live in Fairyland together?"

The old lady laughed outright.

"Dear child, do you think this is Fairyland?" she asked.

"Isn't it Fairyland?" said Una. "Oh, dear, I thought it must be when I came through the little door."

"The little door?" said the old lady. "Where is that?"

"The door in the wall," said Una. "I found it yesterday when I was in the wood, and I thought it was one of the doors to Fairyland."

"Ah! the little door at the end of the apple walk," said the old lady "I had almost forgotten it, it is so long since it has been used—and I thought it was locked, too," she added, half to herself. "Edward," she said, raising her voice a little as she spoke to the old gentleman, "here is a little girl who has found her way into our garden thinking it was Fairyland."

"And a very nice kind of Fairyland too," said the old gentleman, "especially when this kind of little fairy comes to visit us," and he held out his hand to Una kindly.

"You are the little girl from the Grange, are you not?" asked the old lady; then, remembering some rather queer tales she had heard of the new people at the Grange, she asked no more questions, but said that tea would soon be ready, and invited Una to stay and have it with them.

After all it was almost as nice as being in Fairyland, Una thought, as they sat under a large cherry tree covered with snowy blossoms, and drank tea out of the thinnest of china cups, each one shaped like a different flower, with a beetle or a bird or a butterfly for the handle. The clearest of honeycomb was on the table, which the old gentleman had sent for especially for Una; and the black puppy sat at her side all tea-time, opening his wet, black mouth for tastes of bread and butter, and rubbing his head against her knee if she forgot to give him any.

When tea was over Una looked at the sun.

"Oh, dear," she said, "the sun is getting quite low, and Marie will think I am lost."

"Dear, dear! We ought to have thought of that," said the old lady. "Will not your father be anxious also?"

"Papa is away from home for a few days," said Una.

Then she made a little curtsey.

"May I go now, please?" she asked; and the old lady walked with her as far as the little door.

"Come another afternoon to Fairyland," she said, as she stooped to kiss the little girl.

Una promised readily, and only remembered when she was half way through the wood that her father did not like her to visit at strange houses.

"I'll tell him where I've been directly he comes home to-morrow," she thought.

But when she pushed her way through the bushes in the Grange garden she saw her father coming quickly across the lawn towards her, with a short, stout gentleman beside him.

"My little girl, where have you been?" he said. "Marie came to me in great distress just now and told me that Mademoiselle Una was lost, and we have been looking for you everywhere."

"Father, dear father, don't be angry, please," said Una coaxingly; "but I've been to tea this afternoon with a dear old lady and gentleman, and they live in the loveliest garden in the world—at least I think it must be. And they want me to come again; and I do want to go very much, please, father. So don't say 'no,' as you do when I want to go to tea with Norah and Dan. Please, please, father, say 'yes.'"

Monsieur Gen hesitated and glanced towards his friend. But the little stout gentleman was frowning, and Una thought what a disagreeable man he was, and wished that he had not come home with her father, when they might have had such a nice evening together, just he and she alone.

"It is not wise to let the child go anywhere she likes among strangers. You know what children's tongues are like, and how easily stories get afloat," the stranger said in French.

But Una understood French as well as she understood English, and she felt very angry with the stranger for trying to persuade her father not to let her go and see the dear old lady and gentleman again.

"No, dear. You must learn to stay quietly here in the garden," said her father; and Una said no more then, but walked slowly across the lawn into the house and upstairs to the nursery, where she was scolded by old Marie for having run away by herself that afternoon.

And it was not until some hours later—after she had watched the strange gentleman driving away to the station—that she ran downstairs to the library and asked the question which had been puzzling her little brain for the last few weeks.

"Father," she said, "I want to know why I mayn't go and see other little boys and girls, and go to church, and go to see the people in the cottages, as Norah and Tom and Ruth do."

CHAPTER VII.

SECRETS.

"What makes you ask that question, Una?" said her father. "When we have lived in other countries you have never asked to have little boys and girls to play with, or worried about why you may not go and see people and go to church; and here you have Norah and Tom and Dan to play with. Surely that is enough?"

"But I didn't know before that little boys and girls did play with each other," said Una—"at least, when I saw other little boys and girls playing with each other I thought they were brothers and sisters, or cousins, and, of course, I haven't got any brothers or sisters or cousins of my very own; but now that I know what little boys and girls do, I do want to go to church and go to tea with them in their houses, and do things like them. Please, father, let me!" And Una clasped her hands coaxingly as she thought of the dear old lady and gentleman she had been to tea with, that afternoon.

The flower-filled garden, the yellow honeycomb, the gold-fish and the black puppy—and the cockatoo the old gentleman had promised to show her the next time she came—all floated through her brain as she waited for her father's answer. But Monsieur Gen shook his head.

"No, dear," he said.

To himself he was thinking that perhaps he had been foolish to allow Una to be friends with the vicar's children at all; he might have known that it would make her restless, and dissatisfied with the quiet life she had been quite content to live before.

Then he roused himself and looked down kindly at his little girl.

"Are you very disappointed? Poor little Una!" he said, putting his arm round her and drawing her to his side. "Don't look so sad, and I will try and explain to you why it is that you have never had little friends and companions of your own age."

Una looked at him, still gravely, but with the light of a growing interest in her eyes. Then she fetched a little stool and sat down at her father's feet.

"You must know, Una dear," said her father, smiling rather sadly, as he looked down at her, "that each one of us has some kind of work to do in the world. We may do it badly or we may do it well, or we may not even try to do it at all, but each one of us ought to try to do something to help our fellow-men. Do you understand, little one?"

Una nodded.

"Yes, father; I quite understand," she said.

It was not often that her father talked in this way—it was rather like listening to the vicar's sermon the only Sunday she had ever been to church, she thought, as she leant her head against her father's knee; and Monsieur Gen went on speaking:

"Well, dear, sometimes people can help each other to do their bits of work in the world, and sometimes, too, they can spoil other people's work; and there are some people who are trying very hard to spoil the work which I am doing."

Una sprang to her feet.

"Father! How dare they?" she said indignantly. "Horrid people, … I hate them!"

Her father reached out his hand and drew her to him.

"But as long as they cannot find out exactly what I am doing," he said, "or how I am doing it, they cannot really spoil my work; and that is why I have never made friends with people in any of the different places where we have stayed, in case the people who want to spoil my work should try and find out through these new friends who I am, and what I am doing. And that is why I want you, my little Una, to help me to keep my work as secret as possible."

"Oh, father, I will, I will!" cried Una. "Only—only I don't quite see how I can let out a secret if I don't exactly know what it is."

"I cannot tell you all the secret, little Una," said her father—"at least not until you are older and can understand more about it. But if I were to let you make friends and go about wherever you like people would begin to wonder where you came from, and who you were, and to ask you questions about me and what I did; and although not really knowing my secret, you might let out little bits of it, until people began to wonder and talk about you and me. One can never be too careful," he added, half to himself.

"Yes, I understand, father," said Una gravely; and she sat at her father's feet, looking into the fire and not talking much, until the little clock on the mantelpiece struck seven, and Marie came to tell her that it was bedtime.

"I wonder whether I was wise in telling her so much," Monsieur Gen thought to himself, when his little daughter had gone. "But it seemed the only thing to be done, and she is prudent beyond her years, poor little, lonely girl. I do not think she will chatter about anything I have told her."

For some time after this Una was rather quiet and sad, more like what she had been when Norah and Dan first got to know her, and not nearly so ready to laugh and play as she had been of late.

The secret her father had told her weighed heavily on the little girl's mind—she was so afraid that she might have let out to her little friends, though unknowingly, something about her father's work, and she was careful now not to say anything which might lead them to ask questions about him.

One afternoon she was walking by herself in the wood, when she came across Tom seated on the ground with a number of paper bags and packages strewn around him.

"Hullo, Una, what are you doing?" he said, glancing rather guiltily at the parcels, as if he hoped Una would not ask what was in them.

"I came to see if I could find any flowers," answered the little girl. "Marie has a headache this afternoon, and she said I might go in the wood just a little way by myself, because I am so tired of being in the garden."

"I'll show you where you can get some honeysuckle in a minute," said Tom; "it's just out now, and I know where there are some wild forget-me-nots growing all round a pool, a little way from here."

He got up and began to collect some of the paper packages into his arms; then he looked at Una.

"I say, I wonder if you'd help me to carry some of these?" he said. "I kept dropping them coming along, and the marmalade jar has got cracked—it's all dripping through the paper; and the apples keep rolling all over the place," making a sudden dive after a large red apple as he spoke, and dropping half the other parcels in his efforts to catch it.

"I will, if it's not farther than the wood," said Una. "I mayn't go in the road by myself, you know."

"You wouldn't be by yourself, you'd have me," said Tom. "But, anyway, I'm not going outside the wood—at least, only just on to the common, and you needn't come so far as that. I say, Una, shall I tell you a secret?"

Una threw out her hands in the funny little foreign way which was natural to her, and which always made the little Carews laugh.

"Oh, no, no!" she cried. "Not a secret! Please, Tom, don't tell me one."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GIPSIES ON THE COMMON.

Tom stared at Una in surprise.

"Well, you are a funny girl," he said, rather gruffly. "I thought you'd be pleased; it's not often you catch me telling a girl a secret."

Una bent down and began to pick up some of the fallen parcels. She was sorry that she had offended Tom, for it was not often that he condescended to play with or talk to her, and she had felt rather proud when he had asked her to help him that afternoon.

"I thought all girls liked secrets," went on the boy. "You're not a bit like Norah. Why, she'd give anything to know my secret this afternoon."

"Would she? How funny!" said Una, genuinely surprised. "I think secrets are horrid."

"Secrets horrid? Why, they're lovely!" said Tom. "When Barnes—he's our gardener, you know—says he has got a secret to tell me, I know that Bruno has puppies, or that the peaches are ripe and he's going to give me a basketful to take to mother; or he's found a wild bees' nest in the wood and he wants me to help him to dig the honeycomb out; or—or—oh, I can't think of any more now, but secrets are always jolly."

"No, they are not—not quite always," said Una gravely. "But is yours a jolly one, Tom?"

"Yes," said Tom, "awfully!"

"Oh, then, I do want to hear it," said Una eagerly. "Please, Tom, tell me."

"Well," said Tom, "it's just like this: there are some gipsies camping on the common now, and they've got four tiny children, and one's only a baby; and the father broke his leg, some weeks ago, and he's in a hospital at Lawton—the woman told mother all about it when she came to sell chairs and things this morning. She makes dear little chairs, Una, out of oak-apples and chestnuts and things like that; and little picture-frames with grey lichen and acorns and bits of twigs stuck all round; and mother bought a chair for Norah's doll, because, she says, it's much better for them to try and make things like that and try to sell them than just to come round begging, as so many of them do."

Una nodded, as Tom paused for breath.

"Yes, Tom," she said; "go on."

"Well," said the boy, "mother sent Barnes round this morning to see if it was all true; and it is true, quite true, Barnes says. And so mother said I might take them some bread and a pot of marmalade, and butter, and a packet of tea, and sixpence to buy milk with, and then just as I was starting father gave me the six-pence he said he would for weeding the big bed beside the lawn; and so I spent it on biscuits and sugar for the children, because tea is horrid without sugar, isn't it? And that's the secret, Una," said Tom, getting rather red in the face, "and I haven't told anyone but you, because, because, oh—I don't know! But I don't want anybody to know, so you won't tell, will you?"

"No, I promise I won't tell," said Una. "And I think it is an awfully nice secret, Tom dear, and thank you very much for telling me."

"You see," went on Tom, feeling that Una was rather a nice little girl to tell things to, "you know what father said in his sermon last Sunday about not letting your right hand know what your left hand does? Oh, no; I forgot you weren't there. Well, it means if you go and do anything for anyone, or give anything away, or anything like that, don't go and tell everyone what you're doing, just for them to say what a jolly good sort you are."

"Oh, yes, I see!" said Una; "that would be a horrid way of giving things, wouldn't it, Tom? Yours is an ever so much nicer kind of way."

Tom grunted, feeling all of a sudden rather bashful; for it was not often that he talked about himself or his own doings. He was rather the odd one of the family—Norah and Dan being such very great friends, and having so many little plays and fancies together in which he had no share; and Philip and the elder girls being rather inclined to class him with Norah and Dan—as one of the "little ones"—when they came home for the holidays.

"There they are!" he said suddenly. "Look, Una, you can see their wigwam through the trees—that funny sort of hut-place with a rounded roof."

"The gipsies?" said Una. "Oh, Tom, do they live in that funny little house?"

"Yes," said Tom, "and when they want to go somewhere else they just pack up their hut—it all comes to piece somehow—and then go off in that cart. It must be awfully jolly to live like that."

"Yes, in the summer," Una agreed, "but not in the winter, Tom. Oh, no!—not in the cold, cold winter, when the snow is on the ground," and Una gave a little shiver at the thought.

"No," said Tom, "not in the winter, perhaps, and not when they haven't enough to eat, like these now. The woman said she'd only had half a loaf of bread to give her children all yesterday, and that is why mother sent them a great can of soup by Barnes this morning, and I'm taking them these things now, because they're going on to-morrow towards the hospital where the children's father is. Now, what are you going to do, Una? Are you coming too, or going to stay here?"

"I'll stay here," said Una, "if you can carry all the parcels."

"Yes, I can," said Tom. "I carried them all the way from the shop to where I met you in the wood."

Una piled the parcels carefully one on the top of the other in Tom's arms, then sat down on the mossy root of a tree, and watched him as he crossed the common towards the little brown hut among the gorse bushes.

A thin wreath of smoke curled upwards from a small fire in front of the hut; and as Tom drew nearer two children began to throw twigs and branches on the fire, making it crackle and blaze while they danced wildly round the flames, giving little squeals of delight and hitting at each other with the sticks they held in their hands.

It was all fun, however. Una could tell that by the peals of laughter which reached her ears, and she laughed, too, when a little thin black dog sprang out of the hut, joining madly in the dance, and barking furiously when he caught sight of Tom coming towards them.

The children stopped dancing and looked at Tom gravely; then they disappeared inside the hut, calling to someone within, and the next moment a woman came out with a baby in her arms, and another little one clinging to her skirts.

She bobbed a curtsey to Tom, and presently began to take the parcels one by one out of his arms, bobbing lots of little curtseys as she did so; but Una was too far off to hear what Tom and the woman were saying to each other, and she was disappointed when they all went behind the hut and she could not see them any more.

She could still see the parcels where the woman had laid them in a little white heap beside the fire; and by-and-by one of the children came round from the back of the hut and began to open each of the packages in turn, giving little hops and skips of joy as he saw the nice things inside.

Then the other children appeared again, followed by Tom and the gipsy-woman; and they all bobbed curtseys to Tom once more before he left them and came across the heather towards Una, carrying something very carefully in a red pocket-handkerchief.

Una went to meet him through the trees.

"What have you got there, Tom?" she asked.

"Another secret!" he cried, waving the handkerchief to and fro before her eyes.

CHAPTER IX.

UNA'S PET.

"Another secret? Oh, Tom!" said Una.

"It's a nice one, too," said Tom. "Guess what I've got here, Una."

Una looked hard at the handkerchief for some moments; then she slowly shook her head.

"I can't, Tom," she said, wondering if Norah would have been able to guess, and fearing that Tom must think her a very stupid little girl indeed.

But Tom only laughed gleefully.

"I knew you couldn't," he said; "and I don't expect you'll know what to call it, even when you've seen it."

He knelt down on the moss and opened the handkerchief, exhibiting a funny-looking, spiky ball.

"Oh, Tom, what is it?" asked Una. "A ball made of pine-needles?"'

"Pine-needles!" laughed Tom. "You touch the point of one, and see!"

Una pressed one of the spikes gently with her finger, and gave a little cry as the ball moved slightly and became half unrolled; then curled itself up as before.

"Oh, Tom, it's alive!" she cried.

"Yes, it's alive," said Tom. "It's a hedge-hog, Una. The little gipsy-boy found it this morning under a gorse-bush, among some leaves. Hedgehogs go to sleep all the winter, rolled up like this in a ball; and they store up a lot of food somewhere near in case they wake up and get hungry during the winter; and when the spring comes they wake quite up, and begin to move about. That is why this one is really awake now, only he has rolled himself up, and pretends to be asleep, because he's frightened."

"Oh, the funny little thing!" said Una, bending down to see if she could catch a glimpse of the hedgehog's bright little eyes.

"What do you think I'm going to do with it?" asked Tom.

"Keep it?" suggested Una.

"No," said the boy, "I'm going to give it to you."

"Oh, Tom—what for?" asked the little girl, trying to look very pleased and grateful, but wondering whatever she was to do with such a prickly present.

"What for? Why, for you to have as a pet," said Tom. "You're not half such a silly girl as I thought you were; and, of course, you can't help not being English," he added magnanimously. "And, you know, I do think it is awfully dull for you, shut up in that big garden, when we're not there to play with you: and now you'll have the hedgehog to play with."

"So I shall," said Una. "What—what shall I do with it, Tom?"

"Why, feed it," said the boy, "and teach it to know you and to come when you call. You'll have to name it, Una, and teach it tricks and all sorts of things," and poor Tom gave one big sigh as he thought how he would have liked to keep that hedgehog for himself instead of giving it to Una.

Una was too polite, however, to say she did not want the little animal. She knew that it was very kind of Tom to have given it to her, though she had no idea how much he wanted it himself; and she asked him to come home with her that afternoon and make a house for it in the garden, so that it should not run away and get lost in the woods.

After all, Tom's present turned out a great success. It was the first time Una had ever had a pet in her life, and she became so fond of the little creature that she would spend hours playing with it in the garden, tickling its little head with the tip of her finger, and feeding it with dandelion flowers, which it loved.

It was through the hedgehog that rather a queer thing happened one day in the garden.

I think I told you that Una's father went away somewhere by train once a week, and usually came back either the next day or two or three days later, but I don't think I told you that sometimes he brought back gentlemen to stay with him; and occasionally these gentlemen stayed until Monsieur Gen went away again the next week, though more frequently they remained only one night at the Grange and went away again the next day. Now and then, however, they stayed much longer than that—for weeks together indeed; and Una noticed that the ones who stayed longest always looked very pale and thin, and very, very sad, as if they had had much trouble.

But she did not see very much of any of her father's visitors—only coming across one or another of them sometimes on the stairs or in the garden; and the little Carews had never seen any of them, for when they were playing there with Una the strange gentlemen did not come into the garden.

Una used to wonder sometimes what made all the gentlemen who came to her father's house look so sad. All men did not look sad, she knew, for the baker's man who came to the house looked quite jolly, and had a round, red face which seemed always laughing; and Mr. Carew, her little friends' father, looked quite cheerful, too, quite different from her own grave father.

Poor little girl! It was sad for her, this mystery which hung about her life; and I think she would have grown into a very quiet, grave little maiden in those days if she had not had the little Carews to play and be merry with.

One day the children had been having a game on the terrace in the front of the house. It was a new game which Tom had made up, and which they all liked very much. One of them stood, blindfolded, in front of a heap of little sticks at one end of the terrace, and the others all had to hop on one leg and try to get the sticks, one by one, without the blindfolded one catching them; the fun of the game being that it was very difficult not to make a noise hopping on the gravel, and the "blind man" usually pretended not to hear, and then made a dash at the hopping thief just as he or she was carrying off a stick.

They had been playing so long at this game that they had made themselves quite tired and hot, and had sat down on the lawn to rest; and then it was that Una remembered that she had forgotten to shut up "Snoozy," as she had named the hedgehog, after she had given him his breakfast that morning, and now she could not think what had become of him.

The hedgehog had got so tame now that he would follow his little mistress about the garden, and come when she called or whistled; and Una generally let him have a run in the garden every morning, and then shut him up again when she went in to lessons.

To-day, however, although she called and whistled, and looked in all the little animal's usual haunts, she could not find him, and they had almost begun to think that he must have run away into the wood, when Tom thought of the drooping ash-tree at the end of the lawn, and wondered whether "Snoozy" might have hidden himself in there.

"How silly of us," cried Norah. "Why, of course, he must be there. Fancy not thinking of looking there before!"

"I don't know," said Una, "he has never hidden there before; but we can go and look," and they all raced across the lawn, and pushed their way through the drooping branches of the tree.

Yes, there was the hedgehog, curled up into a little ball against the trunk of the tree—thinking, no doubt, that evening had come round again; for the branches and leaves were so thick that it was quite dark under the ash-tree—and beside the hedgehog, leaning carelessly against the trunk of the tree, with folded arms and a scowl upon his face, was a tall, pale-faced, black-haired young man.