nearly two years older than himself, he was not inclined to treat him as a baby.

And so in a wonderfully short time the three children became firm allies, and when the dinner-bell rang and Ruth came in search of her charges, she found them in hot pursuit of the black pigs; Gaston having greatly increased Hubert’s keenness for this sport by his accounts of the boar-hunts in France.

THAT mid-day meal was a very merry one. Everybody had so much to tell, and each had had such delightful experiences in his or her own particular line.

True, Di had not found a pheasant’s nest, but she had practised her climbing to her satisfaction, if not to the benefit of her garments, which showed sundry tattered traces of the results of her morning’s occupation. The boys, according to their own account, had tried their hands at everything in turn—haymaking, boating, fishing; whilst Marygold and Hubert were so voluble and persistent in detailing their marvellous adventures, that even Andrew was forced to allow them a hearing, although he had tried hard to hold forth about some marvels in natural history with which he had meant to impress his companions.

“Shut up about your old crawlers and creepers,” said Phil, “let’s hear what the infants have to say.”

Jack actually dropped his spoon, laden as it was with cherry-tart, to call again for details of the boar-hunt.

“By-the-way, where is that little French beggar?” asked Andrew, with infinite condescension. For Gaston was not at table.

“I expect he’s stopped behind to have some spree with the pigs,” said Phil, turning to begin a whispered conversation with Jack.

Poor Mrs. Busson—to say nothing of poor Mrs. Busson’s black porkers—would have trembled to hear how those two boys were plotting to organize a jolly good boar-hunt all for themselves. As for Gaston, he would certainly have sought a yet deeper ditch and a more remote orchard if he had heard the tone in which Andrew announced after dinner, that he meant to take an early opportunity of “sampling that French frog.”

Happily, however, for all parties, the effects of that singularly hot day, coupled perhaps with the very hearty dinner, made themselves felt even by the adventure-thirsty infants; so that all, from Andrew downwards, readily fell in with Faith’s suggestion that they should adjourn to the shade of the Cuckoo-copse on the other side of the water-meadow.

“Mrs. Busson has had two splendid swings put up there,” she announced, “on two of the biggest oaks, and there’s a lovely stretch of moss and bracken under the trees, where we can all sit and lounge about as we like.”

And so, greatly to Mrs. Busson’s and Ruth’s relief, the whole party, refreshed, but likewise subdued, by their plentiful repast, presently decamped together to the Cuckoo-copse.

Phil and Jack, however, carefully assured Libbie that she might depend on them to drive up the cows from the long meadow in time for milking.

“No need to call Jerry, the cowman, from the hay,” they declared.

“Hold your tongue,” said Mrs. Busson, “I’d a deal sooner break all my own. Just you go down in a minute, Ruth, and take a birds’-eye view of the little dears, to make sure they are going on all right.”

Ruth did go, and brought back a very satisfactory report.

“They’ve all settled down as quiet as lambs,” she declared, “Miss Fay’s needle-working, Miss Di seems writing a letter, Miss Phoena’s got a book, and all the young gentlemen look like going to sleep.”

“Bless their dear hearts, they must be just a picture for good behaviour,” said Mrs. Busson fervently; and so they were, at any rate at the moment when Ruth saw them.

“Beware of the bluest sky,” says the old adage, and the picture of good behaviour in the Cuckoo-copse was alas! not painted in durable colours. Di was the first to break the sleepy silence which had reigned at most for ten minutes.

“I say, boys,” she began, “isn’t this just the sort of copse to make exploring expeditions in?” and, heedless of Fay’s imploring look, signifying that she would do well to let “sleeping boys” lie, Diana proceeded to demonstrate how twenty travellers at least might set out in as many different directions, without interfering with each other’s field of enterprise.

“Oh! yes, oh! yes,” cried the younger children, “let’s start exploring.”

“P’raps we’ll find some more buried gardens,” suggested Hubert.

“Or earfmen, little earfmen,” shrieked Marygold.

Even Phoena dropped her book, fired by a sudden desire to hunt an ant’s nest.

“Plaguey hot work in this weather,” remarked Phil, with a yawn, “a hornet’s nest, that we could blow up this evening, would be better.”

“Oh! but I’d like to find an earfman,” piped Marygold again, “one that could hide under Fay’s thimble.”

“Shut up that rot,” said Andrew, crossly, “and I say, Di, keep out of that nettle-bed, will you? None of you are to disturb those nettles, do you hear, all of you, I’m the eldest, and I mean what I say.”

“Do you?” retorted Di, “and please, your majesty, why can’t I begin my explorations by jumping into the very middle of that nettle-bed if I see fit as I most probably shall.”

“Because, probably, amongst those nettles there’ll be some Hipparchia.”

“Now, chain up with that jargon,” broke in Jack, “we’re not going to stand a butterfly-butcher bossing it over us.”

“You horrid boy,” cried Faith, “that sounds so ugly.”

“There, Mrs. Faith, you show your ignorance of the best verse of the period,” was the retort, “for I was quoting from a very fine piece of modern poetry, eh, Di?’

“Here’s the original, I declare,” said Phil, stretching out his hand from where he was sprawling on the grass, and snatching up the paper on which Di had been busily scribbling before she had arisen, on exploration bent. “Capital,” went on Phil, glancing at the paper, “you’ve improved on it since the morning. Now, pay attention, Miss Annie, here is something worth listening to.”

“Oh, never mind about reading it now,” said Faith, whose previous acquaintance with Di’s verses was not encouraging as to the results of their declamation, “don’t read them now, Phil.”

“And now, gentlemen and ladies, you’ll kindly join in the chorus,” said Phil, “I’ll lead it.”

UNFORTUNATELY, they were not all having a song together down in that shady copse.

Faith had, indeed, been coerced into joining the chorus; with Jack shouting it into one ear, and Di shrieking into the other, it would have been vain to resist, but Andrew was as dumb as a fish.

If he had had a grain of sense he would have scored off his tormentors by joining lustily in the song against himself, but instead of that, he swelled with silent rage, whilst he reflected on the best way of avenging this insult.

His first step in that direction was to round on Hubert, and fling him head foremost into a thicket of brambles. Hubert’s hearty “Let him be caught,” etc., turned abruptly into a dolorous howl, which served as the signal for opening hostilities.

Down from his branch clambered Phil, and by the time Faith had rescued battered Hubert from his thorny surroundings, Andrew was struggling in the strong clutches of his cousins.

“Leave Andrew alone, do boys,” besought Fay and Phoena in one breath. By this time, the offender was stretched full length on the ground, but Di, whose sense of justice was always greater than that of mercy, declared that Andrew ought not to be let off.

Even little Marygold, strong in her unfailing loyalty to Hubert, piped out shrilly that “he ought to be made to say that he was dreffully sorry, before he was released.”

“Yes,” chimed in Jack, “you can take your choice entirely. You can either stay where you are, and you must be jolly comfortable, I am sure,”—here Jack seated himself on Andrew’s fettered feet,—“till we are all tired of sitting on you, by turns, or you may now and at once accept our terms and regain your liberty. Make your choice.”

“He must have the terms read over to him,” said Di. “Phil, dictate them!”

“Don’t please hurt him really,” put in the forgiving Hubert, “because the scratches have done hurting now.”

“Recommendations to mercy are not in order now,” ruled Jack, with a gesture of command. “Shut up, will you!”—this to Andrew, who was wriggling with all his might beneath the weight of his captors, “Di, come here!”

After exchanging a few whispers with Jack, Di returned to her former position under the oak, and, taking up her pen and paper, proceeded to note the articles of the treaty. They were soon ready.

“Get off, will you,” cried Andrew, who was perilously near tears. “Faith, they’re suffocating me.”

“Oh! Jack,” interposed Faith, “do leave him alone, you will hurt—”

“My dear Faith, his well-being is in no one’s hands but his own,” said Jack, emphasizing this statement with a rapid rise and fall of his person on the unfortunate Andrew’s chest, “what’s simpler? he has only to accept our terms, and then he rises a free man.”

“Fa-a-ith, I’m suf-fo-cating,” gasped the culprit.

“Oh! please, please,” besought Marygold, with clasped hands, and terror in her face, “do let him go now.”

“You say,” began Jack, “that—”

“I’ll say I’m sorry,” gasped Andrew, “on condit—”

“No, no conditions,” broke in Jack, “you must—”

“Look here, boys, it really isn’t fair,” said Faith, “you’re two to one, and you know that Andrew isn’t half as strong as either of you.”

“Yes,” added Phoena, “and if you go on bullying him much more, it’s acting rather as he did to Hubert.”

“Well, there’s something in that,” admitted Jack, “after all, Phil, it’s only poor Annie, and it’s just a girl’s trick to knock over one of the infants to show her strength.”

“Yes, just the sort of thing a little girl would do,” echoed Phil, “here, get up, Miss Annie, we’ll forgive you. Lend me a hand, Jack, we must help a lady to rise properly.”

“And now we’ll conclude this entertainment,” said Jack, “with a new kind of rock-it” and with a significant wink at Phil, they set to work to shake Andrew backwards and forwards between them, till every tooth in his head must have trembled in its socket.

And all the time they sang loudly in his ears, to a tune of their own, the offending chorus of Di’s song.

Though Andrew was a year older, and much taller than Jack, and “twice as fat as both he and Phil put together,” as his cousins always assured him, the treatment received at their hands so far cowed him, that once released, he slunk away without a word.

But, coward as he was, he could not resist the temptation of pinching Marygold’s arm viciously as he passed behind her.

“Oh! oh! he did pinch me hard,” she cried, with a very pink face and quivering lips. She would have spilt her blood to avenge any injury inflicted upon Hubert, but she struck no blow to avenge her own. “You are a werry mean boy,” she said, “but p’raps you can’t help it, for I heard Ruth say that you seemed a poor house-lamb sort of young gentleman.”

Possibly this withering remark hit Andrew harder than her small fists could have done.

Phil and Jack greeted this statement with a roar of approving laughter, which Andrew, happily, did not see fit to resent.

FOR the next quarter of an hour, perhaps, certainly no longer, comparative calm reigned amongst the little party.

But the spirit of discord having once broken bounds in their midst, the happy peace of that glorious summer afternoon, which might have worn away so merrily, was gone, and sad to say, wrangling soon began again. First of all, Di, bent on being idle herself, took to teasing Phoena. The latter was trying to read, but Di confiscated her book. Then she ridiculed Fay, who was making a knock-about frock for Marygold’s big doll to wear in the hayfields. Meanwhile Phil and Jack decided to give Hubert a lesson in tree-climbing, and though they began their instructions with the best intentions, they soon started teazing him when he showed himself somewhat unamenable to their orders.

“Look here,” said Phil, indicating a very inaccessible limb of a birch tree, “you’re a regular little molly, but you’ll have to climb up to that branch and ride-a-cock-horse on it before we’ve done with you.”

“But I’ll tumble down, I know I will,” said Hubert, with an amount of caution which his six years made very excusable.

“Well, and if you do tumble down, and if you do break your precious little neck—”

“But I’ll be deaded then,” shrieked Hubert.

“But I ain’t a man yet and I don’t want to die like one,” yelled Hubert, who was being prodded up the tree now by both his brothers.

“You’re wicked, bad boys,” cried Marygold, “I’ll deliver you, Hubert, I will deliver you.”

Therewith she flew upon Phil and hanging all her weight upon his arm, strove to disable him from tormenting Hubert any further.

“I do wish a big ogre would come now and gobble you up,” she gasped.

Then as the boys still persisted that Hubert must reach the perilous point first indicated, Marygold grew quite desperate.

“Please, please don’t break his pore little neck,” she pleaded. There was such real horror in her voice, she looked so pitiful with her brilliant blue eyes brimming over with tears, that the sight of her face helped Hubert quite as effectually as any ogre might have done. For it did gain Hubert’s welcome “deliverance.”

And Marygold gained something further still. For when she suggested that as it had got cooler now, they might all have a really nice game before tea time, Jack and Phil actually consented to “give the infants a turn,” and graciously permitted them to choose the game they would play.

“Oh! ogres, ogres!” they cried, “for this wood will be just beautiful.”

“There’ll be such heaps of room, you know,” added Marygold, “for the little innocents to play at gaffering strawberries and picking up sticks.”

“And such splendid bushes,” went on Hubert, “for the wicked ogre and his blood-thirsty wife to hide in.”

“Come on,” shouted Phil, “you must all come and play.”

“All right,” said Phil, the master of the ceremonies, “Fay’ll be the infants’ mother, Phoena must be the ogre’s cook, and Jack his caterer, and I’ll be the old man of the wood who’ll side with the infants.”

“At that rate,” objected Jack, “there’ll only be the two kids to bag; there ought to be a better show of game than that.”

“Where’s that French froggy?” asked Andrew, suddenly, “we may as well make him come and play.”

“Yes,” assented Jack, “infants, where’s his Froggy-ship to be found?”

“I think he’s in the orchard,” said Hubert, whilst Marygold added, “But you won’t call him froggy, will you? for he’s a good little boy and very frightened.”

“Oh! is he?” cried Andrew, “then we’ll have some fun with him.”

“Oh! Fay, you won’t let them tease him,” pleaded Marygold, who felt in honour bound, if she betrayed Gaston’s whereabouts, to provide for his safety, “you promise me you won’t.”

“No, no, we won’t bully him,” cried several voices.

Comforted by these assurances, the infants set off to fetch Gaston. They found him sitting disconsolately amongst the long grass. Tired of boar-hunting all by himself, he was playing with an ugly, unsavoury looking toad.

So the children’s invitation to join their game in the wood was acceptable, though his face betrayed some alarm when Gaston understood that he was to play with all the big boys and girls too.

“But we’re all going to be ever, ever so kind to you,” said Hubert.

“Here he is, here’s Gaston,” announced the latter, with a note of pride in their voice, bred of a certain sense of proprietorship in the small foreigner.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Grenouille,” began Andrew.

But Gaston did not heed him. His good manners might have put his new acquaintance to shame.

Pulling off his cap, he fan straight to Faith, attracted by her gentle face, and standing bare-headed before her, executed the most perfect bow.

(“With his feet in the first position,” Di sneered, “and his hands hanging straight at his sides.”)

“Good day, Mees,” Gaston stammered.

But when Faith threw her arms round him and kissed his small pale face, he swiftly abandoned all formality and nestled up to her side, as if he had found a long-lost and sorely-missed shelter.

“I told you he was a good little boy,” said Marygold.

“A precious Molly, though,” remarked Andrew.

“Molly yourself,” retorted Jack, “come on now and let’s begin sport.”

“And you,” said Phil, turning to Marygold, “tell Gaston the rules of the game.”

These were of a delightfully simple nature.

“And we yell as loud as we can,” added Hubert, shrieking this item of information at the tip of his voice.

“There, now do you see, the wicked ogre has gone away to hide,” said Marygold, “with his wife, that’s Di, and his cook, that’s Phoena. So we’d better go to Fay. She’s dreadfully sorry when we get caught, but very often she gets caught herself.”

Then from the leafy depths of an old oak, Phil gave the signal for the game to begin.

“My little dears,” he cried, “come out to play.”

“That means, come out to be eaten,” said Hubert.

Therewith Gaston, who by this time was not so sure that this new form of amusement was likely to prove so very charming, was dragged off to play his part in the ogre game.

CERTAINLY if ear-piercing shrieks constituted “strordinary fun” Hubert’s statement was fully justified.

From the very onset the game was wildly exciting, even to the bigger boys. Even Phil, as he jeered the ogre from the tall oak, forgot to call it a baby game, and as Jack executed his “flying squirrel trick,” which meant taking flying leaps from branch to branch, in order to view the land, he began to think that, after all, this sport with the infants was rather fine.

Faith, meanwhile, played her part as an anxious parent perfectly. Hither and thither she fluttered between the different points of danger, with out-stretched arms and skirts, like a good old hen protecting her precious bantlings.

In and out of the hazel bushes and the briar tangles—ay, even into nettle-beds—the infants dashed, caring nothing for pricks and stings and scratches, so long as they could evade the long arm of Jack, the ogre’s caterer, and escape the fierce eyes of the ogre and his wife. These latter would now and again show themselves, glaring ferociously through the bushes, and clamouring loudly for fresh food to be brought to their larder.

After a time, Faith allowed herself to be taken prisoner, and for a moment quite a solemn awe fell upon her companions whilst they watched the proceeding which followed in the ogre’s camp.

First, the captive was securely bound to the slim stem of a birch, then the ogre called on his wife and cook to come and judge if she were fit for immediate dressing.

With rounded eyes and parted lips the three little ones waited almost breathlessly, whilst Di, supported by Phoena,

who carried a long iris leaf to represent a knife, advanced to make the inspection.

Di thrust her fingers into Faith’s cheeks, examined her tongue to see if it would “pay for salting,” pinched her arms, and finally agreed with the cook that she must be cooped up and fattened.

“She shall be fed up on snail soup and luscious slimy slugs,” said the ogre—Andrew was always good at acting,—whilst Di added:

“Tadpole tea is even more nourishing than Bovril, and I’ve seen many skeletons grow stout on caterpillars in oil.”

“See that she has them then,” said the ogre, in a voice that sounded like thunder, “but for our immediate food, my dear wife, we must catch some smaller fry.”

“Yes,” replied the ‘dear wife,’ “one of those little dears yonder, if nicely stuffed and roasted, would make a tasty morsel for supper. Suppose we order that little girl with the cloud of golden hair, which, by the way, would make quite a pretty table garnish.”

Diana’s tone was so business-like that Marygold almost shook in her shoes.

“Or that tender youth crouching beside that ash,” said the ogre, pointing to Gaston, “he’d make a toothsome savoury. Ah!” catching sight of Hubert, who peeped out from the edge of a nettle-bed, “there’s a pair of those small boys, I see. Jack, my caterer, catch them at once, and have them served for supper as grilled green goslings.”

“Certainly, sir,” said Jack, “they’ll make delicious mouthfuls for your greedy-ship and lady. Now, if you will withdraw, and pretend to sleep, I will proceed to secure these desirable young dishfuls.”

“They’re only pretending to sleep,” Marygold explained to Gaston, dragging him behind some hazel bushes, whence he could see the sham sleepers. “They think that we haven’t heard them making their wicked plans, you know. But, oh! look at Phil.”

Armed with a long thistle, Phil was advancing stealthily upon the ogre, who was leaning against the trunk of a tree, snoring lustily, with fast-closed eyes. In another minute Phil would have tickled the ogre’s nose with the spikey weapon he carried.

But Gaston, untrained in the tactics of ogre warfare, instead of observing the breathless silence maintained by the others, gave vent to a loud giggle. This instantly roused the ogre to a knowledge of his danger, and caused Phil to be ignominiously routed.

In the general confusion which ensued Marygold was captured and bound to a tree, with the delightful prospect of being turned into a white soup before sunset.

“You little duffer,” cried Phil, savagely, turning upon the trembling Gaston, “you spoilt all the sport with that idiotic giggle of yours. Now you shall be punished for that by being delivered up to the ogre in exchange for Faith.”

“Yes, master Froggy,” put in Jack, seeing that Gaston really looked alarmed, “you’ll have to pay for that giggle with your blood, so come on.”

Planting his heels firmly together, Gaston resisted resolutely.

It might be all play, still, the big English boy’s voice sounded very angry, and his face looked very fierce.

“Come on,” said Phil, giving Gaston a desperate tug.

“Oh! but, but, I pray you, have pity,” began the boy.

But his entreaty for pity came too late. Negotiations with the ogre, initiated by Jack, were already begun.

“Look here, you old wretch,” he was saying, “respect our flag of truce,”—here he waved his handkerchief—“and we’ll parley with you.” And as the ogre graciously signified his consent, Phil went on:

“Here’s a handsome offer, a jolly little roasting pig, a real Paris nouverty, all ready for dressing, which we’ll give in exchange for the victim that you caught first.”

“And if you don’t say ‘Yes,’ ” put in Hubert, who was well versed in the customs of the game, “we’ll sell him cheap at the nearest cannibal market, so you’d better make up your mind quick.”

Very pompously the ogre advanced.

“Let the article for exchange be exposed,” he said, “and on the faith of an ogre no unfair advantage shall be taken.”

By this time poor Gaston was on the brink of tears. The sudden change in the complexion of affairs from all the previous screaming, shouting, and running, to the dignified air of solemnity which now invested the proceedings, filled him with alarm. Consequently, when, at a sign from Phil, Hubert advanced, and, seizing Gaston by one arm, helped to drag “the article” forward for closer inspection, all notion of it being only a game disappeared from Gaston’s mind, and he really thought that he was facing certain death.

He was rather a baby for his age, but then he had never had elder brothers, and this was his first experience of big English boys and of ogres.

“He—he won’t really eat me,” he faltered.

“Eat you! of course he will. Skin, bones, and grizzle,” said Phil, thoroughly enjoying Gaston’s dismay; “someone always has to be eaten up at the end of the game to make it real.”

“Oh, an awfully jolly little chap,” said Phil, cheerfully, “very like you. I don’t think he would have minded it much if they hadn’t eaten so much mustard with him.”

“They won’t have of mustard to eat with me,” cried Gaston, “for Mrs. Busson was this morning not able to find any.”

“Pepper’ll do as well, or better,” said Phil, coolly, “hurry up, we’re not going to wait any longer. Don’t you hear the ogre sharpening his front teeth on the backbone of the giant that he ate for breakfast this morning? Come on, I say.”

“But no, no, I won’t come, I won’t,” yelled Gaston, trying to throw himself on the ground. “I won’t be eated, I won’t be eated!”

Vainly he looked round for succour. His last friend, Marygold, was herself a captive, and of course, Jack, the caterer, was not on his side.

“Be good enough to come on, gentlemen,” said the ogre, “having begun proceedings, you’re bound to go on with them. Shall my official, Jack, come to your assistance?”

Thereupon Jack came forward, and now, to his exceeding terror, Gaston found himself lifted bodily between the two bigger boys and carried forcibly into the clutches of the ogre.

The latter began to examine him at once. By this time, Gaston was a quaking jelly.

“Hm,” pronounced the ogre, “he’ll do fairly well, provided he’s eaten at once. Cook, come here and take my orders.”

Then, as Gaston fought and struggled with all his might, the ogre remarked, “Now, no struggling, if you please. Don’t you know that over-exertion on your part will spoil your flavour, and make you horribly tough? Jack, my caterer, I fear we shall have to chastise this small object before cooking him, as an example to others, you know.”

“Well, make up your mind, Mr. Ogre,” said Phil, “are you prepared to take over this little porker, or not?”

“I am,” was the reply, “and as he persists in showing fight, we’ll see what a little beating will do for him. It answers admirably in the case of beefsteaks, you know. Take charge of him, Jack.”

“All right,” said that official; then, with a wink at Phil, “just hold him down a minute, while I tie his pettitoes together. Mr. Ogre, kindly assist us.”

“Don’t be afraid,” whispered Hubert in Gaston’s ear, as he lay on the ground, “they won’t really hurt you, Phil won’t let them.”

But playing at bullying is a dangerous game with the best intentioned of schoolboys, and Andrew was the prince of bullies when he was secure from any risk to his own precious person. With such a tiny victim as poor Gaston, he felt perfectly safe. But he had reckoned without his host, or at any rate, without his host’s teeth.

For as soon as he came within biting range of Gaston, the latter, who, as we said, had long ago forgotten that he was supposed to be playing, caught Andrew’s hand between his teeth, and hung on to his fingers for dear life.

Andrew danced and yelled with pain.

“You nasty, abominable little wretch,” he shrieked, “won’t I pay you out for this.”

“What are you about, boys?” cried Faith, who, tied up with her back to this exciting scene, was terrified at these alarming sounds. “Di, do go and see what they are doing.”

But Di was busy now giving chase to Hubert, whom she had been stealthily trying to capture, so she had no ears for Fay.

As to Phoena, no one heeded her gentle remonstrances.

“It’s only fun, Gaston,” she assured him.

“Oh, are we,” cried Andrew, savagely, breaking off a stout hazel switch as he spoke, “we’ll see about that; ogre or no ogre, I’ll teach him to bite me again. Hold him down, Jack, and I’ll give him the jolliest licking he’s ever yet had.”

And before anyone could stop him, Andrew had delivered a cruel cut on Gaston’s small prostrate person.

A piercing yell from the victim rang and echoed again through the wood.

“You shall have plenty more,” said Andrew, lifting the switch to strike afresh, but the elder boys fell upon him.

“Shut up, will you,” they cried, “it’s beastly mean to hit such a little chap. Trying to kick him now, are you? You’d better.” And without more ado the cousins, aided by Hubert, who had returned, panting, but free, brought Andrew to the ground for the second time that afternoon.

“Now we’ll see if a little beating won’t make him tender,” said Jack, wrenching the stick from Andrew.

So it fell out that the rod which he had prepared for another’s back, fell upon Andrew’s own in no very gentle strokes.

“There, I’ll be bound that’s the best licking you’ve ever had in your life,” cried Jack, with genuine satisfaction. “Shouldn’t be surprised if it made a man of you, old chap,” he added, breaking the stick in two pieces and flinging the fragments high up into a tree.

Too mortified to howl, and too cowardly to retaliate, Andrew skulked off in sullen silence.

Gaston was nowhere to be seen. Once freed from his tormentors’ clutches he had flown out of sight and sound of the copse.

“DEAR, dear Miss Faith, whatever has been happening?” enquired Ruth, anxiously. She had come to meet the little party as they returned in answer to the tea-bell’s summons.

Once within sight of shelter, Gaston had lifted up his voice in piteous weeping. Shaking and sobbing, he displayed the marks of ill-treatment that he had received at the hands of his so-called play-fellows that afternoon.

The sight of Andrew’s swollen nose and bleeding fingers, and the disturbed air pervading the whole company put the finishing stroke to Ruth’s alarm.

“You’ve never been quarrelling, I do hope,” she added, as fervently as if the bare possibility were not to be contemplated for a single instant by any sane person.

“Oh! haven’t we!” responded Jack, cheerfully; “and it’s done us all a jolly lot of good.”

“And made us awfully hungry,” added Phil.

And, to judge from the promptness with which they fell upon the good things provided for them, that afternoon’s misdoings had certainly not blunted the mis-doers’ appetites.

The girls, however, did not follow suit. Marygold was tired, and really very sad for Gaston, who was nowhere to be seen. Even Di was unusually subdued, whilst Fay and Phoena were thoroughly ashamed of the results of the first afternoon of taking care of themselves. Indeed, the latter’s sorrowful face, and yet more, her untasted tea, attracted Phil’s attention from his own plate.

Phoena started. She had been very far away in thought-land just then.

“I was thinking,” she began.

“A good thing then,” said Di, “that you didn’t upset your tea this time.”

But Phoena went on: “I was thinking what a pity it seems that this time yesterday we all had such a lot of good intentions, and this afternoon we all managed to forget them so quickly.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Faith, with a sigh.

“A pity we couldn’t bottle them,” said Di, flippantly, “and label them to be used when wanted.”

“Or pickle them,” sneered Andrew.

“No, but do listen,” besought Phoena. Somehow when her eager face was all aglow with enthusiasm and her large eyes shining like lamps no one could resist listening to Phoena. “I’ve been thinking how in the old days, when they must have been just as fond of fighting as you boys are now, they had a very good plan for helping people not to forget their good intentions.”

“Really,” jeered Andrew, “pray how did they manage that, Mrs. Solomon?”

“Did they advertise them like Sunlight Soap?” broke in Di.

“Well, yes; they did something like that,” said Phoena; “that is, they made their good intentions so public that for very shame sake they had to fulfil them.”

“Oh! now I see what you mean,” said Di, who had plenty of wits when she chose to use them; “you’re thinking of those old creatures who were called—oh! what was their name? Cru—cru—something?”

“Cruets!” yelled Hubert, whose last spelling lesson had ended with that word.

“Yes,” said Phoena; “of course the Crusaders were amongst the people I meant, for you see when they once decided to deliver the Holy City, they did wear a red cross on their arm as an outward badge of their intentions; but I wasn’t thinking of them so much as of Arthur’s knights of the Round Table; that glorious company, you know, the flower of men.”

“I see,” said Di; “of course, by accepting knighthood they did advertise their good intentions.”

“Yes, but before they could be knights they had to bind themselves by vows to keep those good intentions,” said Phoena; “and those vows bound them fast like chains, from which they never could be set free without shame and dishonour until they had fulfilled them.”

“Then pray are we all to wear chains?” enquired Andrew.

“Chain up yourself,” said Phil, “and let Phoena speak, will you? Go on, Phoena.”

“Well, if you don’t mind listening,” she continued, “this is what I thought. Though we haven’t got a King Arthur, and——”

“But we’ve got Mrs. Busson’s round table in the window,” put in the irrepressible Di.

“And though we can’t get the Archbishop of Canterbury to come and bless our sieges—yes, don’t laugh, that is the proper name for our seats—and though we can’t have our names put in letters of gold over each of our places, yet I don’t see why we shouldn’t have a sort of Round Table here, and agree to promise to do as far as we can all that Arthur made his knights promise to do.”

“But where are the heathen to come from whom we ought to smash up?” asked Phil.

“You see this is what my book says,” said Phoena, producing a volume from under the table, where she had evidently been studying it out of sight on her knees: “ ‘The knight was to take an oath to fulfil the duties of his profession, namely: to speak the truth, to maintain the right, to protect women, the poor and the distressed, to practise chivalry, to pursue infidels, to despise all temptations to ease and gluttony, and to uphold their honour in every perilous adventure.’ ”

“H’m!” remarked Jack, “rather a large order, but as Andrew always likes to be cock-of-the-walk let’s make him the first knight, and see how he manages to keep his vows.”

“I’ve no objection to being the Grand Master of the Order,” said Andrew, who was secretly rather pleased at being noticed again after his recent disgrace, “but before taking vows and that sort of thing there is a deal to be considered. In the first place,” he continued, in the tone of superiority that he loved to assume, “what kind of armour, I wonder, would be suitable.”

“Oh! the right kind for you would be plate armour,” said Di, quickly, glancing at the amount of jam and cream with which Andrew had heaped his plate, “nothing else would suit you.”

“Happy hit, Di,” laughed Phil. “If you go on at this rate, Miss Annie, we shall have to label you the ‘hold-all’ when we take our luggage home again.”

“You dare!” began Andrew; but happily Ruth, who was perhaps doing duty as constable in plain clothes this evening, happened to appear at that moment to enquire if she could clear the table—all the others had finished their tea—whereupon Andrew, being far more anxious to clear his plate than his character, devoted all his attention to the former pursuit.

IT was rather wonderful how eagerly all the children took to Phoena’s idea of founding a Knighthood of the Order of Good Intentions.

The fact was that in one form or another it possessed distinct attractions for each member of that rather mixed company.

Notably to the schoolboys, to whom the prospect of being bound by a vow to pitch into all evil-doers was highly acceptable.

“Those young beggars who are always riling the farmer by making short cuts across his meadows will come under that head,” said Phil, “we’ll teach them the way they should go and no mistake.”

“That we will,” echoed Jack.

“Yes, but remember that you ought to meet your foes in fair fight,” remarked Faith. “Knights weren’t supposed to bully, you know.”

“Of course,” said Andrew, “as I’ve consented to be your Head it will be for me to draw up the laws by which our Order is to be governed.”

There was instantly a roar of dissentient voices, above which Phoena at length made herself heard.

“Perhaps if your name were Arthur instead of Andrew,” she said slowly, “it might seem a pity not to make you the King, but as it is, wouldn’t it be better for us all to agree that our King is absent—”

“Fighting the Paynims,” broke in Di.

“Exactly,” said Phoena, “and we should all be left on oath to defend the honour of the Round Table.”

“Yes, and couldn’t we make it this way?” suggested Fay; “that the King was to bestow golden spurs on the knight who could show the noblest record on his return?”

“The knights always had golden spurs, I think,” said Phoena, “I don’t think they were regular knights without them. But we might fix a certain trial time during which every knight must do his best to distinguish himself, and when the time is up we’ll appoint a special day and invest him with a grand Order of Merit and—”

“And have a big banquet,” put in Phil.

“Yes, a real stuff-and-sit-down jollification,” added Jack, “infants and all.”

“Yes, yes, infants and all,” chimed in those young parties.

“But please, how soon will that grand day be?” enquired Marygold.

“Ah! that will have to be settled,” said Faith.

“I was coming to that,” said Phoena; “you see we must allow the knights fair opportunity to win their laurels, so as we are here for at least a month, shall we say that the investiture—”

“Please is that the name of what we shall eat,” asked Hubert.