“I wish Diana would give us one of these nice baskets to take home—­a present to Grandmamma,” continued Pamela, as her glance fell upon them.

“You’re very silly, sister,” said Duke.  “Don’t you understand that us is going to run away, like Tim has always been wanting.  And Diana’s going to help us to run away.  Mick mustn’t know and nobody, not till us is too far for them to catch us.  I think it’s a great pity Diana told you; you’re too little to understand.”

“I’m as big as you, bruvver, and my birfday’s the same.  You’re very unkind to say I’m littler than you, and I do understand.”

She spoke indignantly, but the last words ended in tears.  Poor little people!—­life in a gipsy caravan was not the sort of thing to improve their tempers.  But the dispute was soon followed by a reconciliation, and then they decided it was better not to talk any more about what Diana had told them, but to “make plans” inside their heads about how nice it would be to go home again; how they would knock at the door so softly, and creep into the parlour where Grandmamma would be sitting by the fire with Toby at her feet, and Grandpapa at the table with the newspaper; and how they would hug them both!  At which point you will see the plan making was no longer confined to the “inside of their heads.”

“And Duke,” added Pamela half timidly.  “Us must tell all about the broken bowl.  And us must always tell everything like that to Grandmamma.”

“Yes,” said Duke.

“I fink my voice that Grandmamma told us about did tell me to tell,” pursued the little girl thoughtfully.  “Didn’t yours, bruvver?”

“I sometimes think it did,” said Duke with unusual humility.  “I think it must have been that I wouldn’t listen.  You would have listened, sister.  It was much more my fault than yours.  I shall tell that.”

“No, no, it was bof our faults,” said Pamela.  “But I fink Grandpapa and Grandmamma will be so very pleased to have us that they won’t care whose fault it was.”

And then the two little creatures leant their heads each on the other’s, and tried to keep themselves steady against the rough jolting, till by degrees—­and it was the best thing they could have done—­they both fell asleep, and were sleeping as peacefully as in their own white cots at home when, later in the afternoon, Diana got into the waggon again, and, rolling up an old shawl, carefully laid it as a pillow under the two fair heads.  It was getting dusk by now, and the gipsies all disappeared into the vans, for they began to drive too quickly for it to be possible for them to keep up by walking alongside.

The gipsy girl sat there gazing at the two little faces she had learnt to love.  She gazed at them with a deep tenderness in her dark eyes.  She knew it was almost the last time she should see them, but it was not of that she was thinking.