h a trouble as I've had to get back in time, my dear,' she was
beginning, when she too stopped short and seemed to find things a little
unusual.

'Hey-day!' she cried, leaning on her blue-knobbed cane and looking sharply
round. 'What's every one looking so glum about, I should like to know?'

Nobody answered her at first. Dr. Hurst put Robin down and rose to his
feet, and he stopped smiling at last, while Jill dropped the bread-knife
and turned round with a very red face; but neither of them spoke. It was
the Babe who came to the rescue, and it was she who explained everything
in her small, dreamy voice.

'Dr. Hurst has saved Jill from the giant,' she said, 'and they are going
away to their own kingdom, to live happily ever after! I do wish,' she
added wistfully, 'that the magician would come back too. Then things would
be _quite_ beautiful.'

CHAPTER XIX

THE MAGICIAN

The triumvirate sat under the old cedar tree at Crofts, and once more
they discussed the important affairs of the little world at Wootton
Beeches. It was the first Saturday in the term; and Auntie Anna, true
to her promise, had invited Jean and Angela to drive over and spend
it with Barbara. The spring had come in with a rush, and May had dawned
in such a flood of warm sunshine that the child was able to pass most of
her time on a couch in the garden. The Doctor, in spite of the ten miles
that lay between his house and Crofts, came nearly every day to see how
she was; and he hinted at a promise of crutches in ten days' time, after
which she was to go away to the seaside and get strong enough to return
to school at the half-term. It was very nice, Barbara thought, to see
the Doctor so often, now that she was so much better and did not really
need him; but Christopher was very sarcastic on the subject.

'S'pose you think he comes to see _you_, don't you?' he remarked
scornfully; and when pressed by Barbara for a more definite explanation of
the Doctor's actions, he condescended to add: 'Once a chap gets engaged
to a _girl_, it's the _girl_ who's at the bottom of everything he does!'

The day was so hot that Kit and Bobbin came out to join the others under
the cedar tree, and they flung themselves on the grass in different
stages of exhaustion. Now and then, they threw in a lazy contribution
to the conversation that was going on over their heads, though at first
this related entirely to the number of new girls, the alterations in
the classe