CHAPTER XII.
GOOD-BYE TO "US" 218

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

IN ANOTHER MOMENT TOBY'S NOSE WAS IN THE BOWL TOO,
TO TOBY'S SUPREME CONTENT Front.

FROM BEHIND SOME STUBBLE A FEW YARDS OFF ROSE THE
FIGURE OF THE YOUNG BOY WHOM THE CHILDREN HAD
SEEN WALKING BEHIND THE GIPSIES--WHISTLING
WHILE HE CUT AT A BRANCH HE HELD IN HIS HAND Page 74

"HERE'S SOME SUPPER FOR YOU. WAKE UP, AND TRY
AND EAT A BIT. IT'LL DO YOU GOOD" 89

"THEY WANT OUT A BIT," SHE SAID. "THEY'RE TIRED
LIKE WITH BEING MEWED UP IN THERE ALL DAY AND
NEVER A BREATH OF AIR--NO WONDER" 132

"UPON MY WORD THEY ARE SOMETHING QUITE OUT OF THE
COMMON," HE SAID; "I WOULDN'T HAVE MISSED
THEM FOR A GOOD DEAL. WHAT A KING AND QUEEN
OF THE PIGMIES, OR 'BABES IN THE WOOD,' THEY'D
MAKE" 173

"I DO FINK WHEN US IS QUITE BIG AND CAN DO AS US
LIKES, US MUST HAVE A BOAT LIKE THIS, AND ALWAYS
GO SAILING ALONG" 195

"She is telling them stories of the wood,
And the Wolf and Little Red Riding-Hood."
_The Golden Legend._

CHAPTER I.

HOW THEY CAME TO BE "US."

"Blue were their eyes as the fairy-flax,
Their cheeks like the dawn of day."
LONGFELLOW.

A soft rather shaky sort of tap at the door. It does not all at once
reach the rather deaf ears of the little old lady and tall, still older
gentleman who are seated in their usual arm-chairs, one with his
newspaper by the window, the other with her netting by the fire, in the
exceedingly neat--neat, indeed, is no word for it--"parlour" of Arbitt
Lodge. In what part of the country this queerly-named house was--is
still, perhaps--to be found there is no particular reason for telling;
whence came this same queer name will be told in good time. The parlour
suited _its_ name anyway better far than it would that of
"drawing-room," which would be given it nowadays. There was a round
table in the middle; there were high-backed mahogany chairs against the
wall, polished by age and careful rubbing to that stage of dark
shininess which makes even mahogany pleasant to the eye, and with seats
of flowering silk damask whose texture must have been _very_ good to be
so faded withou