n, half
hidden in daisies and trefoil. Sometimes a cry of rage and anguish
bursts from one or other of us who has been the dupe of a puff-ball
family, and who is satiating his or her revenge by stamping on the
deceiver's head, and reducing its fair, round proportions to a flat and
fleshy pulp. We search long and diligently, and our efforts are blessed
with an unwonted success. By the time that the sun has attained height
enough in the heavens to make his power tyrannically felt, our baskets
are filled. Tou Tou has to throw away her wild-roses, limp and flaccid,
into the dust of the lane. We walk home, singing, and making poor jokes,
as is our wont. As we draw near the house with joyful foretastes of
breakfast in our minds, with redly-flushed cheeks and merry eyes, I see
Sir Roger leaning on the stone balustrade of the terrace, looking as if
he were watching for us, and, indeed, no sooner does he catch sight of
us, than he comes toward us.

"Do you like mushrooms?" cry I, at the top of my voice, long before I
have reached him, holding up my basket triumphantly. "See, I have got
the most of anybody, except Tou Tou!"

I have met him by the end of this sentence.

"Do you like mushrooms?" I repeat, lifting the lid, and giving him a
peep into the creamy and pink-colored treasures inside, "oh, you _must_!
if you do not, I shall have a _divorce_! I could not bear a difference
of opinion upon such a subject."

I have never given him time to speak, and now I look with appealing
laughter into his silent face.

"Why, what is the matter?" I cry, with an abrupt change of tone. "What
has happened? How odd you look!"

"Nothing has happened," he answers, trying to smile, but I see that it
is quite against the grain, "only that I have had some not very pleasant
news."

"It is not any thing about--about the _Brat_!" cry I, stopping suddenly,
seizing his arm with both hands, and turning, as I feel, extremely pale,
while my thoughts fly to the only one of my beloveds that is out of my
sight.

"About the _Brat_!" he echoes in surprise, "oh, dear no! nothing!"

"Then I do not much care _who_ is dead?" I answer, unfeelingly, drawing
a long breath; "he is the only person _out_ of this house whose death
would afflict me much, and I do not think that there is any one besides
_us_ that _you_ are very devoted to, is there?"

"Why are you so determined that some one is _dead_?" he asks, smiling
again, but this time a little more natural