"
"Some day I may be able to enlighten her: but just at present--"
"Thanks. She must bear it as best she can. I tell her it's a grand
opportunity for practising patience. But she hardly sees it from that
point of view. Why, there are the children!"
So indeed they were: waiting (for us, apparently) at a stile,
which they could not have climbed over more than a few moments,
as Lady Muriel and her cousin had passed it without seeing them.
On catching sight of us, Bruno ran to meet us, and to exhibit to us,
with much pride, the handle of a clasp-knife--the blade having been
broken off--which he had picked up in the road.
"And what shall you use it for, Bruno?" I said.
"Don't know," Bruno carelessly replied: "must think."
"A child's first view of life," the Earl remarked, with that sweet sad
smile of his, "is that it is a period to be spent in accumulating
portable property. That view gets modified as the years glide away."
And he held out his hand to Sylvie, who had placed herself by me,
looking a little shy of him.
But the gentle old man was not one with whom any child, human or fairy,
could be shy for long; and she had very soon deserted my hand for
his--Bruno alone remaining faithful to his first friend. We overtook
the other couple just as they reached the Station, and both Lady Muriel
and Eric greeted the children as old friends--the latter with the words
"So you got to Babylon by candlelight, after all?"
"Yes, and back again!" cried Bruno.
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