“It are welly pretty,” Bruno more soberly remarked: and he began spelling out some words inscribed on it. “All—will—love—Sylvie,” he made them out at last. “And so they doos!” he cried, clasping his arms round her neck. “_Everybody_ loves Sylvie!”
“But _we_ love her best, don’t we, Bruno?” said the old King, as he took possession of the Locket. “Now, Sylvie, look at _this_.” And he showed her, lying on the palm of his hand, a Locket of a deep crimson colour, the same shape as the blue one and, like it, attached to a slender golden chain.
“Lovelier and lovelier!” exclaimed Sylvie, clasping her hands in ecstasy. “Look, Bruno!”
“And there’s words on this one, too,” said Bruno. “Sylvie—will—love—all.”
“Now you see the difference,” said the old man: “different colours and different words. Choose one of them, darling. I’ll give you whichever you like best.”
Sylvie whispered the words, several times over, with a thoughtful smile, and then made her decision. “It’s _very_ nice to be loved,” she said: “but it’s nicer to love other people! May I have the red one, Father?”
The old man said nothing: but I could see his eyes fill with tears, as he bent his head and pressed his lips to her forehead in a long loving kiss. Then he undid the chain, and showed her how to fasten it round her neck, and to hide it away under the edge of her frock. “It’s for you to _keep_, you know,” he said in a low voice, “not for other people to _see_. You’ll remember how to use it?”
“And now, darlings, it’s time for you to go back, or they’ll be missing you, and then that poor Gardener will get into trouble!”
Once more a feeling of wonder rose in my mind as to how in the world we were to _get_ back again—since I took it for granted that, wherever the children went, _I_ was to go—but no shadow of doubt seemed to cross _their_ minds, as they hugged and kissed him, murmuring, over and over again, “Good-bye, darling Father!” And then, suddenly and swiftly, the darkness of midnight seemed to close in upon us, and through the darkness harshly rang a strange wild song:—
“He thought he saw a Buffalo Upon the chimney-piece: He looked again, and found it was His Sisters Husband’s Niece. ‘Unless you leave this house,’ he said, ‘I’ll send for the Police!’”