danced
wildly round the flames, giving little squeals of delight and hitting
at each other with the sticks they held in their hands.

It was all fun, however. Una could tell that by the peals of laughter
which reached her ears, and she laughed, too, when a little thin black
dog sprang out of the hut, joining madly in the dance, and barking
furiously when he caught sight of Tom coming towards them.

The children stopped dancing and looked at Tom gravely; then they
disappeared inside the hut, calling to someone within, and the next
moment a woman came out with a baby in her arms, and another little one
clinging to her skirts.

She bobbed a curtsey to Tom, and presently began to take the parcels
one by one out of his arms, bobbing lots of little curtseys as she did
so; but Una was too far off to hear what Tom and the woman were saying
to each other, and she was disappointed when they all went behind the
hut and she could not see them any more.

She could still see the parcels where the woman had laid them in a
little white heap beside the fire; and by-and-by one of the children
came round from the back of the hut and began to open each of the
packages in turn, giving little hops and skips of joy as he saw the
nice things inside.

Then the other children appeared again, followed by Tom and the
gipsy-woman; and they all bobbed curtseys to Tom once more before he
left them and came across the heather towards Una, carrying something
very carefully in a red pocket-handkerchief.

Una went to meet him through the trees.

"What have you got there, Tom?" she asked.

"Another secret!" he cried, waving the handkerchief to and fro before
her eyes.

CHAPTER IX.

UNA'S PET.

"Another secret? Oh, Tom!" said Una.

"It's a nice one, too," said Tom. "Guess what I've got here, Una."

Una looked hard at the handkerchief for some moments; then she slowly
shook her head.

"I can't, Tom," she said, wondering if Norah would have been able to
guess, and fearing that Tom must think her a very stupid little girl
indeed.

But Tom only laughed gleefully.

"I knew you couldn't," he said; "and I don't expect you'll know what to
call it, even when you've seen it."

He knelt down on the moss and opened the handkerchief, exhibiting a
funny-looking, spiky ball.

"Oh, Tom, what is it?" asked Una. "A ball made of pine-needles?"'

"_Pine-needles!_" laughed Tom. "You touch the point of one, and see!"

Una pressed one of t