d not be afraid of him."

"Well, well," said little Daffydowndilly, "but if you please, sir, I
don't want to see the soldiers any more."

So the child and the stranger resumed their journey; and, by and by,
they came to a house by the road-side, where a number of people were
making merry. Young men and rosy-cheeked girls, with smiles on their
faces, were dancing to the sound of a fiddle. It was the pleasantest
sight that Daffydowndilly had yet met with, and it comforted him for all
his disappointments.

"Oh, let us stop here," cried he to his companion; "for Mr. Toil will
never dare to show his face where there is a fiddler, and where people
are dancing and making merry. We shall be quite safe here!"

But these last words died away upon Daffydowndilly's tongue; for,
happening to cast his eyes on the fiddler, whom should he behold again
but the likeness of Mr. Toil, holding a fiddle-bow instead of a birch
rod, and flourishing it with as much ease and dexterity as if he had
been a fiddler all his life! He had somewhat the air of a Frenchman, but
still looked exactly like the old schoolmaster; and Daffydowndilly even
fancied that he nodded and winked at him, and made signs for him to join
in the dance.

"Oh, dear me!" whispered he, turning pale, "it seems as if there was
nobody but Mr. Toil in the world. Who could have thought of his playing
on a fiddle!"

"This is not your old schoolmaster," observed the stranger, "but another
brother of his, who was bred in France, where he learned the profession
of a fiddler. He is ashamed of his family, and generally calls himself
Monsieur le Plaisir; but his real name is Toil, and those who have known
him best think him still more disagreeable than his brothers."

"Oh, take me back!--take me back!" cried poor little Daffydowndilly,
bursting into tears. "If there is nothing but Toil all the world over, I
may just as well go back to the school-house!"

"Yonder it is,--there is the school-house!" said the stranger, for
though he and Daffydowndilly had taken a great many steps, they had
travelled in a circle instead of a straight line. "Come; we will go back
to school together."

There was something in his companion's voice that little Daffydowndilly
now remembered, and it is strange that he had not remembered it sooner.
Looking up into his face, behold! there again was the likeness of old
Mr. Toil; so that the poor child had been in company with Toil all day,
even while he was