e 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.

CHAPTER X.

WHAT THE YOUNG MAN SAID.

For some moments the children stared at the young man without saying a
word--they were so surprised at finding him there; and he scowled back
at them fiercely, as though he thought they had no right to have come
under the ash-tree at all.

"We came to look for my hedgehog," said Una at last, making just the
suspicion of a curtsey as she spoke, for this young man was so much
younger than most of her father's visitors that she was not quite sure
whether her old nurse would have told her to curtsey to him or not.

The young man looked at her, then muttered something to himself in a
strange language, and shook his head.

Then Una spoke in French.

"We came to look for the little animal there," she said, pointing to
the hedgehog; and the young man smiled as he pushed it gently with his
foot and rolled it towards her.

He looked so much nicer when he smiled that the children