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СКАЧАТЬ were all a bit puffed when we had played for awhile, so we decided that as the donkey seemed calm and was eating grass and resting, we might as well follow his example.

      "We ought not to be too proud to take pattern by the brute creation," said Dora.

      So we had our lunch in the wood. We lighted a little fire of sticks and fir-cones, so as to be as gipsyish as we could, and we sat round the fire. We made a charming picture in our bright clothes, among what would have been our native surroundings if we had been real gipsies, and we knew how nice we looked, and stayed there though the smoke got in our eyes, and everything we ate tasted of it.

      The woods were a little damp, and that was why the fire smoked so. There were the jackets we had cast off when we dressed up, to sit on, and there was a horse-cloth in the cart intended for the donkey's wear, but we decided that our need was greater than its, so we took the blanket to recline on.

      It was as jolly a lunch as ever I remember, and we lingered over that and looking romantic till we could not bear the smoke any more.

      Then we got a lot of bluebells and we trampled out the fire most carefully, because we know about not setting woods and places alight, rolled up our clothes in bundles, and went out of the shadowy woodland into the bright sunlight, as sparkling looking a crew of gipsies as any one need wish for.

      Last time we had seen the road it had been quite white and bare of persons walking on it, but now there were several. And not only walkers, but people in carts. And some carriages passed us too.

      Every one stared at us, but they did not seem so astonished as we had every right to expect, and though interested they were not rude, and this is very rare among English people—and not only poor people either—when they see anything at all out of the way.

      We asked one man, who was very Sunday-best indeed in black clothes and a blue tie, where every one was going, for every one was going the same way, and every one looked as if it was going to church, which was unlikely, it being but Thursday. He said—

      "Same place wot you're going to I expect."

      And when we said where was that we were requested by him to get along with us. Which we did.

      An old woman in the heaviest bonnet I have ever seen and the highest—it was like a black church—revealed the secret to us, and we learned that there was a Primrose fête going on in Sir Willoughby Blockson's grounds.

      We instantly decided to go to the fête.

      "I've been to a Primrose fête, and so have you, Dora," Oswald remarked, "and people are so dull at them, they'd gladly give gold to see the dark future. And, besides, the villages will be unpopulated, and no one at home but idiots and babies and their keepers."

      So we went to the fête.

      The people got thicker and thicker, and when we got to Sir Willoughby's lodge gates, which have sprawling lions on the gate-posts, we were told to take the donkey cart round to the stable-yard.

      This we did, and proud was the moment when a stiff groom had to bend his proud stomach to go to the head of Bates's donkey.

      "This is something like," said Alice, and Noël added:

      "The foreign princes are well received at this palace."

      "We aren't princes, we're gipsies," said Dora, tucking his scarf in. It would keep on getting loose.

      "There are gipsy princes, though," said Noël, "because there are gipsy kings."

      "You aren't always a prince first," said Dora; "don't wriggle so or I can't fix you. Sometimes being made a king just happens to some one who isn't any one in particular."

      "I don't think so," said Noël; "you have to be a prince before you're a king, just as you have to be a kitten before you're a cat, or a puppy before you're a dog, or a worm before you're a serpent, or——"

      "What about the King of Sweden?" Dora was beginning, when a very nice tall, thin man, with white flowers in his buttonhole like for a wedding, came strolling up and said—

      "And whose show is this? Eh, what?"

      We said it was ours.

      "Are you expected?" he asked.

      We said we thought not, but we hoped he didn't mind.

      "What are you? Acrobats? Tight-rope? That's a ripping Burmese coat you've got there."

      "Yes, it is. No we aren't," said Alice, with dignity. "I am Zaïda, the mysterious prophetess of the golden Orient, and the others are mysterious too, but we haven't fixed on their names yet."

      "By jove!" said the gentleman; "but who are you really?"

      "Our names are our secret," said Oswald, with dignity, but Alice said, "Oh, but we don't mind telling you, because I'm sure you're nice. We're really the Bastables, and we want to get some money for some one we know that's rather poor—of course I can't tell you her name. And we've learnt how to tell fortunes—really we have. Do you think they'll let us tell them at the fête. People are often dull at fêtes, aren't they?"

      "By Jove!" said the gentleman again—"by Jove, they are!"

      He plunged for a moment in deep reflection.

      "We've got co—musical instruments," said Noël; "shall we play to you a little?"

      "Not here," said the gentleman; "follow me."

      He led the way by the backs of shrubberies to an old summer-house, and we asked him to wait outside.

      Then we put on our veils and tuned up. "See, see the conquering——"

      But he did not let us finish the tune; he burst in upon us, crying—

      "Ripping—oh, ripping! And now tell me my fortune."

      Alice took off her veil and looked at his hand.

      "You will travel in distant lands," she said; "you will have great wealth and honour; you will marry a beautiful lady—a very fine woman, it says in the book, but I think a beautiful lady sounds nicer, don't you?"

       "WE'VE GOT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS," SAID NOËL.

      "Much; but I shouldn't mention the book when you're telling the fortune."

      "I wouldn't, except to you," said Alice, "and she'll have lots of money and a very sweet disposition. Trials and troubles beset your path, but do but be brave and fearless and you will overcome all your enemies. Beware of a dark woman—most likely a widow."

      "I will," said he, for Alice had stopped for breath. "Is that all?"

      "No. Beware of a dark woman and shun the society of drunkards and gamblers. Be very cautious in your choice of acquaintances, or you will make a false friend who will be your ruin. That's all, except that you will be married very soon and live to a green old age with the beloved wife of your bosom, and have twelve sons and——"

      "Stop, СКАЧАТЬ