the hills at a gallop."

Fraeulein pressed a packet of biscuits into the Bishop's hand. "He eat no
breakfast," she said.

"Uncle Dick said the porch would sit down, and it has," said Regie, in
an awe-struck voice, as the carriage swayed from side to side of the
road. "Father knows a great deal, but sometimes I think Uncle Dick knows
most of all. First gates and flying half-pennies, and now porches."

"Uncle Dick is staying in Southminster. Perhaps we shall see him."

"I should like to ask him about his finger, if it isn't a secret."

"I don't think it is. Now, what secret shall we make up on the way?" The
Bishop put his head out of the window. "Drive faster," he said.

It was decided that the secret should be a Christmas-present for
"Auntie Hester," to be bought in Southminster. The Bishop found that
Regie's entire capital was sixpence. But Regie explained that he could
spend a shilling, because he was always given sixpence by his father
when he pulled a tooth out. "And I've one loose now," he said. "When I
suck it it moves. It will be ready by Christmas."

There was a short silence. The horses' hoofs beat the muffled ground all
together.

"Don't you find, Mr. Bishop," said Regie, tentatively, "that this riding
so quick in carriages and talking secrets does make people very hungry?"

The Bishop blushed. "It is quite true, my boy. I ought to have thought
of that before. I am uncommonly hungry myself," he said, looking in
every pocket for the biscuits Fraeulein had forced into his hand. When
they were at last discovered, in a somewhat dilapidated condition in the
rug, the Bishop found they were a kind of biscuit that always made him
cough, so he begged Regie, who was dividing them equally, as a personal
favor, to eat them all.

It was a crumb be-sprinkled Bishop who, half an hour later, hurried up
the stairs of the Palace.

"What an age you have been," snapped Dr. Brown, from the landing.

"How is she?"

"The same, but weaker. Have you got Regie?"

"Yes, but it took time."

"Is he frightened?"

"Not a bit."

"Then bring him up."

The doctor went back into the bedroom, leaving the door ajar.

A small shrunken figure with bandaged head and hands was sitting in an
arm-chair. The eyes of the rigid, discolored face were fixed.

Dr. Brown took the bandage off Hester's head, and smoothed her hair.

"He is coming up-stairs now," he said, shaking her gently by the
shoulders. "Regie is coming up-stairs no