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 quantity 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 assistance.”

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.

[Illustration:  “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 cushion 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.