and Apollo digs the grave, and the dead ’un is put into the ground, and we all cry, or pretend to cry.  Sometimes I do squeeze out a tiny tear, but I’m so incited I can’t always manage it, although I’m sure I’ll cry when Rub-a-Dub is put into the ground.  Then afterwards there is a tombstone, and Iris thinks of the insipcron.  I spects we’ll have a beautiful insipcron for poor Rub-a-Dub, ’cos we all loved him so much.”

“Well, all this is very interesting, of course,” said Mr. Delaney.  “But now we must be quick, because your Aunt Jane has come.”

“Who’s her?” asked Diana.

“A very good lady indeed—­your aunt.”

“What’s an aunt?”

“A lady whom you ought to love very much.”

“Ought I?  I never love people I ought to love,” said Diana firmly.  “Please, father, this is the dead-house.  You can come right in if you like, father, and see the dead ’uns; they are all lying on this shelf.  Most of them is to be buried pwivate, ’cos they are not our own pets, you know; but Rub-a-Dub is sure to have a public funeral, and an insipcron, and all the rest.”

Mr. Delaney followed Diana into the small shed which the children called the dead-house.  He gazed solemnly at the shelf which she indicated, and on which lay the several dead ’uns.

“Put your mouse down now,” he said, “and come along back with me to the house at once.  You ought to have been in bed long ago.”

Diana laid the mouse sorrowfully down in the midst of its dead brethren, shut the door of the dead-house, and followed her father up the garden path.

“It’s a most beautiful night,” she said, after a pause.  “It’s going to be a starful night; isn’t it, father?”

“Starful?” said Mr. Delaney.

“Yes; and when it is a starful night Orion can’t sleep well, ’cos he is a star hisself; isn’t he, father?”

“Good gracious, child, no!  He is a little boy!”

“No, no, father!  You are awfu’ mistook.  Mother called him a star.  I’ll show you him up in the sky if it really comes to be a starful night.  May I, father?”

“Some time, my darling; but now you must hurry in, for I have to get ready for dinner.  Kiss me, Di.  Good-night.  God bless you, little one!”

“B’ess you too, father,” said Diana.  “I love ‘oo awfu’ well.”

She raised her rosebud lips, fixed her black eyes on her parent’s face, kissed him solemnly, and trotted away into the house.  When she got close to it, a great sob came up from her little chest.  She thought again of the dead Rub-a-Dub, but then the chance of his having a public funeral consoled her.  She longed to find Iris.

Full of this thought, her little heart beating more quickly than usual, she rushed up the front stairs, and was turning down the passage which led to the nursery, when she was confronted by a short, stout woman dressed in black.

“Now, who is this little girl, I wonder?” said a high-pitched, cheery voice.