ither way, they would make us ridiculous if we
told them what we expected."

"Tyrants!" muttered the Pirate-Colonel.

"Nay, my Redforth," said Alice, "say not so. Call not names, my
Redforth, or they will apply to Pa."

"Let 'em," said the Colonel. "I don't care. Who's he?"

Tinkling here undertook the perilous task of remonstrating with his
lawless friend, who consented to withdraw the moody expressions above
quoted.

"What remains for us to do?" Alice went on in her mild wise way. "We
must educate, we must pretend in a new manner, we must wait."

The Colonel clenched his teeth--four out in front, and a piece off
another, and he had been twice dragged to the door of a dentist-despot,
but had escaped from his guards. "How educate? How pretend in a new
manner? How wait?"

"Educate the grown-up people," replied Alice. "We part to-night. Yes,
Redforth,"--for the Colonel tucked up his cuffs,--"part to-night! Let us
in these next Holidays, now going to begin, throw our thoughts into
something educational for the grown-up people, hinting to them how
things ought to be. Let us veil our meaning under a mask of romance;[A]
you, I, and Nettie. William Tinkling being the plainest and quickest
writer, shall copy out. Is it agreed?"

The Colonel answered, sulkily, "I don't mind." He then asked, "How about
pretending?"

"We will pretend," said Alice, "that we are children; not that we are
those grown-up people who won't help us out as they ought, and who
understand us so badly."

The Colonel, still much dissatisfied, growled, "How about waiting?"

"We will wait," answered little Alice, taking Nettie's hand in hers, and
looking up to the sky, "we will wait--ever constant and true--till the
times have got so changed as that everything helps us out, and nothing
makes us ridiculous, and the fairies have come back. We will wait--ever
constant and true--till we are eighty, ninety, or one hundred. And then
the fairies will send _us_ children, and we will help them out, poor
pretty little creatures, if they pretend ever so much."

[Illustration]

"So we will, dear," said Nettie Ashford, taking her round the waist with
both arms and kissing her. "And now if my Husband will go and buy some
cherries for us, I have got some money."

In the friendliest manner I invited the Colonel to go with me; but he so
far forgot himself as to acknowledge the invitation by kicking out
behind, and then lying down on his stomach on the grass, p