dressed and off. There was no question
of baths _this_ morning, but Diana washed their faces and hands well,
and smoothed their tangled hair.

"I must make them as tidy as I can," she said to herself with a sob in
her throat.

Duke saw with satisfaction that his nankin suit--which Diana had
persuaded him not to wear the day before, having lent him a pair of
trowsers of Tim's, which she had washed on purpose, and in which,
doubled up nearly to his waist, he looked very funny--was quite clean;
and Pamela, to her still greater surprise, found herself attired in a
tidy little skirt and jacket of dark blue stuff, with a little hood of
the same for her head.

"Why, what's this?" she said. "It's a new gown!"

"I made it," said Diana quietly. "I wanted you to look as tidy as I
could. You'll tell them, missy dear--won't you?--that poor Diana did her
best."

"Indeed us will," cried both together. But they did not know that the
gipsy girl had cut up her one decent dress to clothe little Pamela.

"And shall us see Grandpapa and Grandmamma to-day?" they went on,
hugging Diana in their joy as they spoke.

"Not to-day, nor to-morrow, but before long, I hope," she replied. And
then, as they were eager to go, "Won't you say your prayers, master and
missy, that you may come safe to your home; and," she added in a low
voice, "ask God to show poor Diana how to be good?"

"Us will always pray for you, dear Diana," they said, after they had
risen from their knees again, "and some day, you know, you _must_ come
and see us."

She did not answer, but, quickly lifting them down the steps of the
waggon, locked the door and put the key in her pocket. Then, still
without speaking,--the children seeming to understand they must be as
quiet as possible,--she lifted Pamela in her arms, and Duke running
beside, they had soon made their way out of the midst of the vans and
carts and booths, all of whose owners were still asleep.

For even now it was barely dawn, and the air felt chilly, as is
generally the case early of a May morning.

Diana walked so fast, though she had a big basket as well as a little
girl in her arms, that Duke, though he would not have owned it, could
scarcely keep up with her. But at last, just as he was beginning to feel
he must cry mercy, she slackened her pace and began to look about her.

"He should be somewhere near," she said, more as if speaking to herself
than to the children, and just then, with a sort of wh