ng a day or so in
a large town, where Seraminta played the tambourine in the streets, and
Mossoo danced, they had now left the north far behind them. They were
bound for certain races near London, and long before they arrived there
Perrin had determined to get rid of the child whom he daily disliked
more; he would leave her in the workhouse, and the burden would be off
his hands. Baby's lucky star, however, was shining, and a better home
was waiting for her.

One evening after a long dusty journey they came to a tiny village in a
pleasant valley; Perrin had made up his mind to reach the town, two
miles further on, before they stopped for the night, but by this time
the whole party was so tired and jaded that he saw it would be
impossible to push on. The donkey-cart came slowly down the hill past
the vicarage, and the vicar's wife cutting roses in her garden stopped
her work to look at it. At Seraminta seated in the cart with her knees
almost as high as her nose, and her yellow handkerchief twisted round
her head; at the dark Perrin, striding along by the donkey's side; at
Mossoo, still adorned with his last dancing ribbon, but ragged and
shabby, and so very very tired that he limped along on three legs; at
the brown children among the bundles in the cart; and finally at baby.
There her eyes rested in admiration: "What a lovely little child!" she
said to herself. Baby was seated between the two boys, talking happily
to herself; her head was bare, and her bush of golden hair was all the
more striking from its contrast with her walnut-stained skin. It made a
spot like sunlight in the midst of its dusky surroundings.

"Austin! Austin!" called out the vicar's wife excitedly as the cart
moved slowly past. There was no answer for a moment, and she called
again, until Austin appeared in the porch. He was a middle-aged
grey-haired clergyman, with bulging blue eyes and stooping shoulders; in
his hand he held a large pink rose. "Look," said his wife, "do look
quickly at that beautiful child. Did you ever see such hair?" The
Reverend Austin Vallance looked.

"An ill-looking set, to be sure," he said. "I must tell Joe to leave
Brutus unchained to-night."

"But the child," said his wife, taking hold of his arm eagerly, "isn't
she wonderful? She's like an Italian child."

"We shall hear of hen-roosts robbed to-morrow," continued Austin,
pursuing his own train of thought.

"I feel perfectly convinced," said his wif