es overflowed, but his
cheeks reddened, and he said--

"What do I care, you stupid? You can go if you like," and then down
came his stick with a sounding thwack on the donkey's flank.

Now startled out of all composure by such sudden and summary address,
the beast threw up his hinder legs and ducked down his head, and
tumbled his rider into the water. Michael Sunlocks scrambled to his
feet, all dripping wet, but with eyes aflame and his little lips set
hard, and then laid hold of the rope bridle and tugged with one hand,
while with the stick in the other he cudgelled the donkey until he
had forced it to cross the river.

While this tough work was going forward, Greeba, who had shrieked at
Michael's fall, stood trembling with clasped hands on the bridge,
and, when all was over, the little man turned to her with high
disdain, and said, after a mighty toss of his glistening wet head:

"Did you think I was drowned, you silly? Why don't you go, if you're
going?"

Not all the splendor of bow and feather could help the little maiden
to withstand indifference like this, so her lip fell, and she said:

"Well, you needn't say so, if you _are_ glad I'm going."

And Sunlocks answered, "Who says I'm glad? Not that I say I'm not,
neither," he added quickly, leaping astride his beast again.

Whereupon Greeba said, "If _you_ had been going away _I_ should have
cried," and then, to save herself from bursting out in his very face,
she turned about quickly and fled.

"But I'm not such a silly, I'm not," Michael Sunlocks shouted after
her, and down came another thwack on the donkey, and away he sped
across the meadow. But before he had ridden far he drew rein and
twisted about, and now his blue eyes were swimming once more.

"Greeba," he called, and his little voice broke, but no answer came
back to him.

"Greeba," he called again, more loudly, but Greeba did not stop.

"Greeba!" he shouted with all his strength. "Greeba! Greeba!"

But the little maid had gone, and there was no response. The bees
were humming in the gold of the gorse, and the fireflies were buzzing
about the donkey's ears, while the mountains were fading away into a
dim wet haze.

Half an hour later the carriage of the Duchess drove out through the
iron gates of Government House, and the little maiden seated in it by
the side of the stately lady, was crying in a voice of childlike
grief--

"Sunlocks! Sunlocks! Little Sunlocks!"

The advantage which the