Part 15 (2/2)

”Stay, stay--wait a bit,” he said eagerly, ”Diana,” he called,--and as Diana was in reality only waiting behind a shed she soon appeared again,--”I were only joking. Of course it's for you to show the Signor the pretty dears--such care as she's had of them, so bright and merry as she's taught them to be, you wouldn't believe,” he went on in a half whine. ”It'll be a sore trouble to her to part with them--you'll have to think o' that, Signor. I've promised Diana we'd act handsome by _her_.”

”Of course, of course,” said the other, with a sneer. ”Sure to be handsome doings where you and me's concerned, friend Mick. But where _are_ the creatures? You're not playing me a trick after all, are you?”

he went on, looking round as if he expected to see the children start up from the earth or drop down from the sky.

”This way,” said Diana, more civilly than she had yet spoken, ”follow me if you please--they're close by.”

In another minute she was standing on the steps of the van with the key in the lock. Then suddenly she turned and faced the Signor.

”They're asleep,” she said. ”I kept them up and awake a long time, but I hadn't thought you'd be so late. I can wake them up if you like, and if they saw me there they wouldn't cry. But they'd be half asleep--there'd be no getting them to show off to-night. But of course it's as the Signor chooses.”

He looked at her curiously. He was surprised to find her seemingly as eager as Mick that he should think well of the merchandise they were offering him for sale! He had rather expected the gipsy girl to set herself against the transaction, for he knew she disliked him, and that no money would have persuaded her herself to join his ”troupe.” But he was too low himself to explain anything in others except by the lowest motives. ”She thinks she'll get something handsome out of me if she's civil about it,” he said to himself. Seeing, however, that civility was to be the order of the day, he answered her with an extra quant.i.ty of grins.

”Quite of your opinion, my young lady. Better not disturb the little dears. Should like a look at them, however, with your kind a.s.sistance.”

Diana said no more, but, unlocking and opening the door, stepped carefully into the van, followed by her companions--Mick remaining somewhat behind, probably because he could not have got quite into the recesses of the waggon without tumbling, and such sense as remained to him telling him he had better not make a noise. The van inside was divided in two--something after the manner of a bathing-machine, such as I daresay most children have often seen. The door in the middle was not locked, and Diana pushed it softly open; then, advancing with the light held high so as to show the children's faces without flaring painfully upon them, stood at one side and signed to the Signor to come forward.

And he was too much startled and impressed--ugly, cold-hearted little wretch though he was--by the sight before him to notice the strange, half-triumphant, half-defiant expression on Diana's dark beautiful face.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”UPON MY WORD THEY ARE SOMETHING QUITE OUT OF THE COMMON,” HE SAID;

”I WOULDN'T HAVE MISSED THEM FOR A GOOD DEAL. WHAT A KING AND QUEEN OF THE PIGMIES, OR 'BABES IN THE WOOD,' THEY'D MAKE.”--p. 173.]

”There they are,” it seemed to say, ”and could anything be lovelier?

_Wouldn't_ you like to have them?”

They lay there--the delicate little faces flushed with ”rosy sleep”--the fair fluffy hair like a golden shadow on the rough cus.h.i.+on which served as a pillow, each with an arm thrown round the other; they looked so like each other that even Diana was not sure which was which. No pair of fairies decoyed from their own country could have been prettier.

The Signor was startled into speaking the truth for once.

”Upon my word they are something quite out of the common,” he said; ”I wouldn't have missed them for a good deal. What a king and queen of the pigmies, or 'babes in the wood,' they'd make! I'll have to get something set up on purpose for them. And they're sharp at learning and speak plain you say?--at least he did,” he added, turning round to look for Mick, who by this time had lurched up to the middle door of the van and was leaning on the lintel, looking in stupidly.

”Ay, they're sharp enough, and pretty spoken too,” said Diana.

”Sharp and pretty spoken,” echoed Mick.

”Then I'm your man,” said the Signor; ”I'll----”

But the girl interrupted him.

”There's one thing to be said,” she began. ”You must not think of letting them be seen hereabouts. You might get yourself and us too into trouble. It's too near where they come from.”

The Signor held up his hands warningly.

”Hush,” he said, ”I don't want to know nothing of all that. They're two desolate orphans, picked up by you out of charity, and I take them to teach them a way of gaining a livelihood. That's all about it.”

”Well, all the same, you can do nothing with them hereabouts,” repeated Diana, anxious to gain time to put into execution the plans of escape.

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