to his own great surprise, and not without a struggle, was
lifted to the phaeton and placed close to the lady, who drew him to
her, and kept him safe within her arm. Geoff looked up at the face that
bent so closely over him with a great deal of curiosity and a mingled
attraction and repulsion. In his giddy state, it seemed to him another
phase of the dream. The sudden elevation, the rush of rapid motion, so
different from his slow and easy progress, the two bays dashing through
the air, the lady's perfumery and her caresses, all bewildered the boy.
Where were they taking him? After all, was there really some ogre's
castle, some enchanted palace, to which he was being swept along without
any will of his? The little boy was disturbed by the kisses and caresses
of his new friend. He was neither shy nor forward; but he felt himself
too old to be kissed, and a little indignant, and slightly alarmed, in
the confusion of his shaken frame, as to where he was being taken and
what was going to happen to him. The bays were grand and the lady was
beautiful; but as Geoff looked at her, holding himself as far away as
was possible within the tight reach of her arm holding him, he thought
her more like the enchantress than the good, lovely fairy queen, which
had been his first idea. She was not like the ogre's wife he knew so
well,--that pathetic, human little person, who did what she could to
save the poor strayed boys; but rather of ogre kind herself, kissing him
as if she would like to put a tooth in him, with loud laughter at his
shrinking and indisposition to be caressed. Geoff also felt keenly the
meanness of forsaking Theo, and even the pony, who by this time, no
doubt, must be very sorry for having thrown him, and very much puzzled
how to get home. Would the groom (left behind for the purpose) be able
to catch him? All these things much disturbed Geoff's thoughts. He paid
little attention to the promises that were made to him of tea and nice
things to eat, although he was faint and hungry; feeling not altogether
certain, in his little confused brain, that he might not, instead of
eating, be eaten, although he was quite aware at the same time that this
was nonsense, and could not be.

But when the phaeton turned in at the gate of the Elms, and Geoff saw
the high red brick house, surrounded with its walls, like a prison, or
like the ogre's castle itself, his perturbation grew to a climax. The
vague alarm which takes complete posse