any more,
Little dear;
Good-by, Rub-a-Dub."

"Oh, don't Di! You make me feel so frightened," said Orion. "Why do
you talk like that? Can't you 'member nothing?"

"Course I 'member," said Diana. "Rub-a-Dub's dead."

"Never know fear,
Little dear;
Rub-a-Dub's dead."

"Come this way," said Orion, taking her hand.

She was quite willing to follow him, although she did not in the least
know where she was going.

"S'pect I aren't well," she said at last. "Don't be fwightened, poor
little boy. S'pect I aren't k'ite well."

"I's so hungry," moaned Orion.

"Well, let's go into the house; let's have bekfus. Where's Fortune?
Come 'long, Orion; come 'long."

They had reached the highroad now, and were walking on, Orion's arm
flung round Diana's waist. Suddenly, rattling round a corner of the
country road, came a man with a milk cart. He was a very
cheery-looking man with a fat face. He had bright blue eyes and a
kindly mouth.

"Hullo!" he said, when he saw the two little children coming to meet
him. "Well, I never! And what may you two be doing out at this hour?"

Diana gazed up at him.

"I's going to the garding," she said. "I's to meet Iris in garding. We
is to 'cide whether it's to be a pwivate or a public funeral."

"Bless us and save us!" said the man.

"Don't mind her," said Orion; "she's not well. She fell off a horse
last night, and there's something gone wrong inside her head. I s'pect
something's cracked there. She's talking a lot of nonsense. We has
runned away, and we is desperate hungry. Can you give us a drink of
milk?"

"Well, to be sure," said the man, smacking his lips as he spoke. "I
never saw anything like this afore, and never heard anything like it,
neither. Why, it's like a page out of a printed book. And so you has
run away, and you belong to the circus, I guess. Why, you are in your
circus dresses."

"See my bow and arrow," said Diana. "I is the gweat Diana; I is the
gweatest huntwess in all the world."

"To be sure; to be sure!" said the man.

"And I am Orion," said the boy, seeing that Diana's words were having
a good effect. "You can watch me up in the sky on starful nights. I am
a great giant, and this is my girdle, and this is my sword."

"I never heard anything so like a fairy tale afore," said the man.
"Are you sure you are human, you two little mites?"

Diana took no notice of this.

"I want to get into the garding," she said. "I want t