"She's all right now," said Mother Rodesia. "She's just dead tired. Of course, if I had had my way, I'd have put a little of that syrup into their soup--Mother Winslow's Syrup--but Mother Bridget wouldn't have it. She took quite a fancy to the little gal, and all on account of her firing up and calling her names."
"I never seed sech a little 'un," he said, "sech a sparky little piece. Ben's in rare luck. I'd like to keep her for a sort of little sister of my own--she'd amuse me fine."
"Well, well, you aint a-goin' to have her," said Mother Rodesia. "I'm goin' to ask thirty shillin's for her and thirty shillin's for the boy. That'll be three pund--not a bad night's work; eh, Jack?"
"No," replied Jack; but then he continued after a pause, "You'll tell him, won't you, mother, to be good to the children. I wouldn't like to think that little 'un was treated cruel, and her sperit broke--she has got a fine sperit, bless her; I wouldn't like it to be broke. I don't care for the little boy. There's nothing in 'im."
"Well, stop talking now," said Mother Rodesia. "They must be missed at the Rectory by this time, and they'll be sendin' people out to look for 'em. It's a rare stroke of luck that nobody knows that we are camping in the Fairy Dell, for if they did they would be sure to come straight to us, knowin' that poor gypsies is always _supposed_ to kidnap children. Now, Jack, you just hold the pony as still as you can, and I'll slip the clothes off the pair of 'em."
Little Diana, in her deep sleep, was not at all disturbed when stout hands lifted her away from Orion, and when she lay stretched out flat on a large lap. One by one her clothes were untied and slipped off her pretty little body, and some very ugly, sack-like garments substituted in their place. Diana had only a dim feeling in her dreams that mother was back again, and was undressing her, and that she was very glad to get into bed. And when the same process of undressing took place on little Orion, he was still sounder asleep and still more indifferent to the fact that he was turned sometimes over on his face, and sometimes on his back, and that his pretty, dainty clothes, which his own mother had bought for him, were removed, never to be worn by him again.