opples him over on the grass and hoists him up on his own
shoulders. "You precocious rascal! What will you be when you are
twenty?"

"Babe's future is a thing of horror to contemplate," says his mother,
smiling placidly.

"Who is Madame Sabaroff?" asks Brandolin, again, with a vague curiosity.

"A princess in her own right; a god-daughter of the Emperor's," says
Dodo. "She is so handsome, and her jewels--you never saw such jewels."

"Her father was Chancellor," adds her mother, "and her husband held some
very high place at court, I forget what."

"Held? Is he disgraced, then, or dead?"

"Oh, dead: that is what is so nice for her," says Dodo.

"Heartless Dodo!" says Brandolin. "Then if I marry you four years hence
I must kill myself to become endeared to you?"

"I should pity you indeed if you were to marry Dodo," says Dodo's
mother. "She has not a grain of any human feeling, except for her dog."

Dodo laughs. She likes to be called heartless; she thinks it is _chic_
and grown-up; she will weep over a lame puppy, a beaten horse, a dead
bird, but she is "hard as nails to humans," as her brother Boom phrases
it.

"Somebody will reign some day where the Skye reigns now over Dodo's
soul. Happy somebody!" says Brandolin. "I shall be too old to be that
somebody. Besides, Dodo will demand from fate an Adonis and a Cr[oe]sus
in one!"

Dodo smiles, showing her pretty white teeth; she likes the banter and
the flirtation with some of her father's friends. She feels quite old;
in four years' time her mother will present her, and she means to marry
directly after that.

"When does this Russian goddess who drops ponies and turquoises out of
the clouds arrive here?" asks Brandolin, as he picks up his racquet to
resume the game.

"She won't be here for three days," says Lady Usk.

"Then I fear I shall not see her."

"Oh, nonsense! You must stay all the month, at least."

"You are too good, but I have so many engagements."

"Engagements are made to be broken. I am sure George will not let you
go."

"We won't let you go," cries the Babe, dragging him off to the nets,
"and I'll drive you this afternoon, behind my ponies."

"I have gone through most perils that can confront a man, Babe, and I
shall be equal even to that," says Brandolin.

He is a great favorite with the children at Surrenden, where he has
always passed some weeks of most years ever since they can remember, or
he either, for he was a godson and ward