e bass of Gavel's steam organ. The hoot of a
whistle presently confirmed her guess.

'Dolph was steering them steadily towards the sound; and a glow in the
sky, right ahead and easily discernible, would have guided them even
without his help. Tilda recognised that glow also.

"And the best is, it means Bill," she promised.

But they did not catch the tune itself until they were close upon the
meadow. At the top of a rise in the road it broke on them, the scene
almost simultaneously with its music; and a strange scene it was, and
curiously beautiful--a slope, and below the slope a grassy meadow set
with elms; a blaze of light, here and there in the open spaces; in one
space a steam roundabout revolving with mirrors, in another the soft
glow of naphtha-lamps through tent cloth; glints of light on the
boughs, dark shadows of foliage, a moving crowd, its murmur so silenced
by music and the beat of a drum that it seemed to sway to and fro
without sound, now pressing forward into the glare, now dissolving into
the penumbra.

Arthur Miles paused, trembling. He had never seen the like. But Tilda
had recovered all her courage.

"This," she assured him, "is a little bit of all right," and taking his
hand, led him down the slope and posted him in the shadow of a
thorn-bush.

"Wait here," she enjoined; and he waited, while she descended cautiously
towards the roundabout with its revolving mirrors.

He lost sight of her. He lay still where she had commanded him to lie,
watching the many twinkling lights, watching the roundabout turn and
flash and come to a stop, watching the horseplay of boys and maidens as
one set clambered off laughing and another pressed forward into their
places. The tune droned in his ears, came to an end, went on again.
He drowsed to its recurrent beat. From his couch in the wet shadow he
gazed up at the stars riding overhead, above the elms.

At the end of twenty minutes Tilda stole back to him; and, softly though
she came, her footfall woke him out of his dreams with a start.
Yet, and though he could barely discern her from the shadow of the
thorn-bush, he knew on the instant that she brought disappointment.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Everything's the matter. Bill's gone!"

CHAPTER XIV.

ADVENTURE OF THE PRIMROSE FETE.

"_Confusion and Exeunt._"--OLD STAGE DIRECTION.

"Gone?" echoed the boy blankly.

"'Ad a row with Gavel this very aft'rnoon. Got the sack, with a