ely, although his lips were
quivering piteously, and all the healthy colour had fled from his
cheeks, leaving them pale as the petals of a faded white rose.

Moll laughed again more loudly than before. Did the little softy really
believe that big folks meant everything they said? And looking into her
broadly-smiling face and unscrupulous eyes, Darby Dene had his first
lesson in the meaning of deceit. He there and then began to realize that
there are people in the world to whom falsehood comes easy, who think
little or nothing of a broken vow.

"Why do you wish us to stay with you?" he asked, turning to Joe as the
more hopeful of the two, because Joe said pretty much what he meant, and
Moll did not. "You don't love us, and of course you can't expect that we
can be very fond of you after--after--well, we know you for only such a
little while. Do please let us go," urged the child in pleading tones;
and now the big tears rolled down his cheeks and splashed in heavy
drops, like a summer shower, over the breast of his shabby velvet
blouse, while Joan sat and stared from Moll to Joe in wide-eyed silent
terror.

"Not likely!" replied Mr. Harris, with an ugly laugh. "You're goin' to
begin yer eddication, my son, an' little missy here too. So now shut up,
an' let's have no more o' yer blubb'rin'. Ye're goin' to do as I bid ye,
or if ye don't I'll manage to learn ye, I'm thinkin'. Eh?" he cried,
playfully pinching Joan's small pink ear until she screamed with pain,
then glancing from face to face of the party gathered around the fagot
fire, fingering idly at the same time the heavy whip in his belt with
which he kept Bruno to his tasks. "An' min', if ye try to slope--to run
away--well, it'll be all the worse for ye an' for anybody as helps ye,"
he added savagely, with a scowl in the direction of the dwarf, who sat a
little apart, his head leaning upon his hands, his barely-tasted
breakfast on the ground beside him.

Joe then lighted his pipe, took a gun and some rabbit-snares from the
caravan, and shouting to Tonio to look sharp, he sauntered off in the
direction of the fir plantation, with the black boy following dutifully
at his heels.

Moll shortly after retired within the caravan, where they could hear her
singing snatches of a rollicking street song as if for her own
diversion; then--with only the dwarf, the bear, and the monkey to
witness their distress--Darby and Joan threw themselves on the grass,
where, wrapped in