ime. Then he addressed his aunt.

"Joan's quite correc'," he said, standing right in front of her, bravely
bent on confession of his naughtiness and getting it over as quickly as
possible, so that he could start fair with a clean sheet. "I was mad
because you punished me, and we made up a plan--at least I did--to run
away and find the Happy Land, and I coaxed Joan to come with me. It's
all my fault, Aunt Catharine; so whatever putting to bed or catechism
there is I'll take it, for I was the naughty one. But we found out that
there's no Happy Land at all--at least not like what I thought. Our
Happy Land's here at Firgrove, and oh, but we're glad to get back to
it!--Aren't we, Joan?"

"Yes, werry, werry glad," agreed Joan readily.

"And I'm never going to be disobedient or troublesome, never, never any
more, if you'll forgive me this time, Aunt Catharine, and let me begin
over again," begged the boy, slipping a grimy little paw into Aunt
Catharine's spotless hand.

"Forgive you, child!" cried Aunt Catharine, in a broken voice. "Why, of
course I'll forgive you, and we'll both begin over again, Darby," she
whispered.

"That's right," he replied cheerily. "And I'm going to try to make a
Happy Land all about me wherever I am. Mr. Bambo 'splained it to me ever
so nicely. He's very clever, you know. This is he," said Darby, pointing
to the dwarf, who still leaned, as if for support, against the pillar of
the gate.

Bambo advanced a step, tried to speak, but his voice was too hoarse to
be intelligible.

"He's my own dear dwarf!" declared Joan, patting the little man's
shoulder with gentle, caressing touch.

"He is called Bambo, but his real own name is Green--Jimmy Green; Green,
our gardener's grandson, Aunt Catharine," explained Darby in rapid
sentences. "The wicked man and woman took us to their caravan when we
were on our way to look for the Happy Land, and only for Bambo we should
not have known where to find it. We love him, Aunt Catharine, Auntie
Alice. He is ill--very ill, I think. Won't you please be good to him,
both of you?" pleaded the boy, in eager, coaxing accents.

The ladies looked from Darby to the dwarf in a bewildered way. Again he
attempted to explain his presence there, and again he failed. He was
about to steal quietly away--for was not his work done, his mission
accomplished?--when all at once the ground seemed to slip from beneath
his feet; he swayed, reeled, and with a low moan, as of a hurt an