, I'd like to see an old policeman run after me. I'd trip him up and
roll him all down the hill, I would. I'd put his head in a rabbit hole.
I would. I can run faster than a policeman, I can."

Michael was swaggering round and round the spread-out cups and saucers
and plates.

"If you put your foot on those jam sandwiches, you'll go straight back
to the carriage and wait there till we've finished tea. Do you hear?"

Michael considered for a moment the possibility that Nanny might execute
this threat. He decided that she might and temporarily sobered down. But
the air was in his veins and all tea-time he could not chatter fast
enough to keep pace with the new power which was inspiring him with
inexpressible energy. He talked of what he was going to do in Hampshire;
he talked of what he was going to do on the journey; he talked of what
he was going to do at school and when he was grown up. He arranged
Stella's future and bragged and boasted and fidgeted and shouted, so
that Nurse looked at him in amazement.

"Whatever's the matter with you?" she asked.

Just then a tortoiseshell butterfly came soaring past and Michael,
swinging round on both his legs to watch the flight, swept half the
tea-cups with him. For a moment he was abashed; but after a long sermon
of reproof from Nurse he was much nearer to laughter than tears.

A gloomy reaction succeeded, as the party drove home through the grey
evening that was falling sadly over the country-side. A chilly wind
rustled in the hedgerows and blew the white dust in clouds behind the
wagonette. Michael became his silent self again and was now filled with
apprehensions. All that had seemed so easy to attain was now complicated
by the unknown. He would have been glad of Miss Carthew's company. The
green-shaded lamp and creaking harmonium of the seaside lodgings were a
dismal end to all that loveliness of wind and silver so soon finished.
Nevertheless it had made him very sleepy and he was secretly glad to get
to bed.

The next day was a dream from which he woke to find himself clinging
affectionately to Miss Carthew's arm and talking shyly to Nancy Carthew
and a sidling spaniel alternately, as they walked from the still country
station and packed themselves into a pony-chaise that was waiting
outside behind a dun pony.

Chapter VI: _The Enchanted Palace_

The dun pony ambled through the lanes to the village of Basingstead
Minor where Mrs. Carthew and her four daugh