would have sadly distressed him. He never once could get
near the children. And, what he found very strange, Diana herself seemed
to be doing her utmost to keep him from them. Two or three times,
especially when Mick or the Missus happened to be near, she roughly
pushed him back when he was making his way to the door of the van, where
Duke and his sister were. And at first the boy was not only surprised,
but rather offended.

"What for will you not let me play with them a bit?" he said to her,
half inclined to appeal to Mick, who did not interfere.

"They've no need of _you_--keep out of my way," Diana answered roughly,
at which Mick and the others laughed as if it was a very good joke, for
hitherto Diana had been always accused of "favouring" the boy.

Tim looked up resentfully. He had it on his tongue--for after all he was
only a child--to say something which might have done harm never to be
undone, for he could not understand Diana. But something in her face, as
she looked at him steadily, stopped the words of reproach as they rose
to his lips.

"You'll make an end of them, you will, if you keep them choked up in
there all day," he said sullenly. "Why can't you let 'em out for a bit
of a run with me, like you've done before?"

"I'll let them out when it suits me, and not before. It's none of your
business," she replied, while adding in a lower tone that no one else
could overhear: "I'd never have thought you such a fool, Tim;" and Tim,
feeling rather small,--for he began to understand her a little,--walked
off.

All this was at what they called dinner-time, when the vans generally
halted for an hour or so and hitherto--even when they were travelling
too quickly for the children to have walked beside for a change, as they
had sometimes done when going slowly--Mick or Diana had always let them
out at this hour for a breath of fresh air. But to-day, though it was
beautifully fine and the sun was shining most temptingly, poor Duke and
Pamela had to be content with the sight of it through the tiny little
window in the side of the van, which Diana opened, and with such air as
could get in by the same means. It was hot and stuffy inside, and their
little heads ached with being jolted along, and with having had no
exercise such as they were accustomed to. Still they did not look
altogether miserable or unhappy, as they tried to eat the dinner the
gipsy girl had brought them on a tin plate, from the quickly-lighted
fir