t
satisfied by their promise not to tell anyone about the poor little
unhappy children she had told them of. She bade her little friends
good-bye then, and carried "Snoozy" away rather sadly to his home in
the kitchen garden--a disused cucumber frame, where he was generally
put for safety when his little mistress was not with him in the garden.

Una met the black-haired young man several times after that in the
house and garden, but he did not talk to her again about the little
boys and girls who lived in that other country, which was so different
from kind, peaceful old England. After a time he went away, and no
more strange gentlemen came to the house. And then, one day, Una's
father went away also.

This was not one of Monsieur Gen's usual visits to London, when he
stayed sometimes one night, sometimes two, or even came back the very
same day to Haversham. This time he would be away for some weeks,
perhaps a month, perhaps longer, he said, as he kissed his little girl
one sunny June morning; and now August had come, and Una's father had
not come back again, and the little girl felt very lonely as she
wandered among the weedy flower-beds in the rose-garden.

There were not many roses out that morning, and the few that still
bloomed on the bushes were poor specimens compared with the beauties
that used to scent the air in that old garden. For years the Grange
roses had been noted for miles around; but it was long since pruning
shears had touched those branches, or since care of any sort had been
shown to the Grange grounds, and it was only the children who thought
the flower-beds beautiful and the garden itself a play-ground of bliss.

It was indeed a pleasant place to them, that overgrown old garden; for
no gardener looked askance when they dug holes in the gravel paths, or
turned the rockery into a grotto large enough to get into themselves
and play at elves and witches and mermaids and other delightful games;
and no one said them nay when they built a hut upon the lawn--with
willow branches and rushes from beside the pond--where they "camped
out" many a long summer afternoon, pretending to be gipsies, or
soldiers, or Ancient Britons, whichever their fancy pleased.

CHAPTER XI.

SAD DAYS.

The days did not pass quite so happily, just now, for Una. Philip and
Stephen Carew had brought home a boy friend with them from school, and
Tom liked to play cricket with the elder boys in the vicarage meadow,