CHAPTER XVII

SEVEN TIMES ROUND THE WORLD

'Have the girls gone home?' asked the invalid, about a week later. She had made such strides towards recovery that she was to be allowed her first visitor that day, and she could not help wondering whether Jean Murray was going to be the privileged person. Everything had been so strange and quiet since the morning she had woke up in Finny's bed; and she had slept away so many hours of the days that followed, that she had lost count of the time altogether. She seemed to have been lying in a kind of delicious enchantment, with people doing things for her just as though she were a princess; while Jill was always at hand to tell her stories in her beautiful soft voice, whenever she grew tired of lying still. For Jill was the nicest person in the world to be with, when one was enchanted; she never bothered, and she always seemed to come to the rescue just in time, when the pain of being strapped in one position began to grow intolerable. Then, there was the Doctor too. No one would have expected the Doctor to turn out such a trump. Only to-day, after being so strict in the morning about what she was to eat, he had run in again after lunch to bring her a packet of sweets. They were very wholesome sweets, as he had assured Jill; but still they were sweets, and a doctor who was a beast would never have thought of bringing them, even if they were wholesome. So, clearly, he was not a beast. Even Jill had been surprised at his coming twice in one day, now that she was so much better; so that showed that he must be a particularly nice sort of doctor. For Jill had once nursed Auntie Anna when she was ill, and she knew a lot about doctors, so she would not have been surprised at his coming twice in one day, if it had been a usual thing for a doctor to do. Babs smiled happily to herself as she settled the Doctor's claims to niceness; then she remembered that she was going to have a visitor after tea, and she asked again if the girls had gone home.

'Yes, they went five or six days ago,' said Jill, without impatience, though she had answered the same question once already. Babs certainly did not need an illness to make her absent-minded.

'Then who is coming to see me after tea?' was Barbara's next inquiry.

'I said Kit might come; I thought you would like to have him best,' answered Jill.

'Kit? Is he going to bicycle over from Crofts?' asked the child.

'Why, no,' explained Jill, smiling. 'They have all been in the house ever since you were taken ill. Finny invited them to stay, you know, and Auntie Anna too.'

Barbara laughed a little. 'They'll never be able to tease me again, now that they've stopped in a girl's school themselves,' she remarked with a chuckle.

There was a pause, which the invalid occupied in thinking over the things she had been too lazy to consider before. She had a great many questions to ask, but somehow it was too much exertion to ask them. Fortunately, Jill was so clever that she always guessed what she wanted to know without waiting to be asked first; and that saved a lot of trouble. In this way the child had learned that the gymnastic prize was to be divided between Jean and herself; and thinking about the gymnastic prize produced another question from her, rather unexpectedly.

'Wasn't it Scales who moved the trapeze away?' she asked.

Jill looked up surprised. None of them knew how much Babs remembered of what had happened on the night of her accident. 'Yes,' she replied. 'He has been very unhappy about it, poor man! He writes every day from Hanover to say how miserable he is. But, of course, it was an accident.'

'Of course,' said Barbara, looking distressed; and Jill was afraid she had said too much.

'Shall I write and send him a message from you?' she suggested quickly. Babs brightened up, and nodded.

'Tell him it's awfully jolly to be ill and to have every one doing things for you, and bringing you sweets, and all that,' she said eagerly. 'And say that if he wants me to pay him out, just to make us quits, don't you know, he can think of the awful way I am sure to play my pieces next term.'

'Very well,' answered Jill, laughing; and there was silence once more.

Jill looked very pretty as she sat there by the window, working away at her embroidery in the frame; and Babs congratulated herself, with a glow of satisfaction, on having made her a princess in her fairy kingdom. It was so nice of Jill, she reflected, to behave exactly like a princess, and to sit at the window of her lonely turret making tapestry, to while away the time until her prince should come thundering over the drawbridge below. Jill's prince had not come yet, so of course she would have to go on working by the window till he did; she deserved an extra nice prince too, and Babs sighed as she remembered that she had not been able to find her any sort of a prince so far.

'It's a pity, isn't it, that Dr. Hurst had to be enchanted again so soon?' she murmured aloud.

'I'm afraid I don't _quite_ understand,' said the princess, from the window.

'You see,' continued Babs, solemnly, 'he began by being a beast; then I disenchanted him and made him into a handsome and gallant young prince; and after that he was so horrid to Jean and Angela in the quarantine that I had to turn him out of my kingdom, and make him wander over the earth once more in the shape of a beast.'

'Oh,' said Jill, bending rather closely over the embroidery frame. 'Let me see, what kingdom was that?'

'_My_ kingdom,' answered Barbara, in an important tone. Then she realised that Jill did not know about her kingdom. 'I've never told any one before,' she went on doubtfully. 'If I tell you, Jill, will you promise not to laugh?'

Jill promised, and worked on steadily at her embroidery while the small voice from the bed painted her the fairy kingdom she had never described to any one before.

'And so,' concluded Barbara, with a sigh, 'I can't make it come right, because now there's a princess without a prince. Do you mind waiting until I find you a prince, Jill?'

'Not at all,' answered Jill, turning to the light rather abruptly, and taking quite a long time to choose between two shades of silk.

'It was so stupid of Dr. Hurst to get himself turned out like that, wasn't it?' continued Babs.

'He--perhaps he didn't know,' said Jill, with some hesitation.

'You can't be a beast without knowing it,' answered Barbara, positively.

'Are you sure he _is_ a beast?' asked Jill, who was still looking out of the window, though she had chosen her silk some moments ago.

'Oh, he's not a beast now. I _love_ him. Don't you?' cried the child, enthusiastically.

Jill began putting her work away in a great hurry. 'It's time for tea,' she remarked.

Barbara did not seem to have heard. The dreamy look had returned to her face, and she was almost thinking aloud.

'You see,' she murmured, 'however nice he is now, he _must_ walk round the world seven times, and kill a giant, and rescue a beautiful princess, before he can be disenchanted a second time. You can't alter that. It's a pity you haven't got to be rescued or anything, Jill, because then----'

'If you talk any more, child,' interrupted Jill, with decision, 'you will be too tired to have a visitor after tea.'

Jill _was_ a nice person, Barbara settled again in her mind, as they had tea together out of Finny's private tea-set that the Canon had given her last Christmas. She was so nice that she even slipped away afterwards, when Christopher came into the room, so that he and Babs could have their talk together without feeling that somebody else was listening. For all that, neither of them seemed to find it easy to begin, and they remained looking at each other in silence for some moments after Jill had closed the door upon them.

Then Christopher made a great effort and addressed her from the end of the bed, where he had taken up his position.

'Hullo!' he said, tugging at his collar as if to remove some obstruction to his voice.

'Hullo!' answered Babs, faintly, from among her pillows.

Then followed another pause. They both felt there were plenty of things to be said, but somehow they could not think of them just then. Presently, Kit remembered that she was an invalid, and that invalids always had to be kissed. He also decided that the sooner he got it over the better; so he marched round to the side of the bed and kissed her.

'How are you, Babe?' he asked, feeling more at his ease now that this formality was over and he was free to climb on the edge of her bed and sit there swinging his legs.

'Oh, I'm all right,' answered Barbara, heartily.

They both knew she was nothing of the sort, but in the Berkeley family it was a point of honour with every one, even during a visitation of toothache, to declare himself 'all right.'

'How are you, Kit?' asked Babs, after a little further reflection.

'I'm all right, thanks,' answered Christopher, faithfully, and he whistled a tune to fill the next pause. 'Awfully poor lying here, isn't it?' he resumed presently.

Barbara nodded. 'It's stale,' she said expressively.

Kit looked sympathetic. 'It would make _me_ sick,' he observed.

'Oh, it's all right,' Barbara hastened to assure him; and he whistled a little more.

'Jill's all right too, isn't she?' he continued after a while.

'Oh, Jill's all right--_rather_,' said the child, warmly. 'How are the other boys, Kit?'

'They're all right,' answered Kit.

'And Auntie Anna?'

'She's _all_ right,' answered Kit.

Conversation again languished slightly. Barbara's eyes, wandering round the room in search of inspiration, fell on the little bag of sweets that the Doctor had brought her.

'Have a sweet,' she suggested, pointing to the table by the window.

Christopher slipped off the bed with alacrity. 'It's awfully decent of you,' he observed. 'Sure you don't want them all?'

'Oh, no; take the whole jolly lot,' begged his sister.

Kit's countenance fell slightly when he peered into the bag. 'Acid drops,' he commented briefly, and put a couple critically into his mouth. 'Who brought them?'

'Dr. Hurst. He said they were wholesome,' replied Babs, by way of explanation. She did not want Kit to think she had been such a muff as to choose acid drops in preference to chocolate.

'That's just about what he would say,' remarked the boy, putting several more of them into his mouth.

'I--I think he's all right, Kit,' said Barbara, timidly.

Christopher shook his head vigorously. It was the only form of reply possible to him at the moment.

'He's a rotter,' he said, as soon as he could speak; 'and so slack, too!' He peered again into the paper bag. 'Is it worth while?' he murmured to himself, and decided that it was not. 'Pity it wasn't some one else who got them for you,' he added with a sigh, as he returned to the bed.

'He isn't bad, _really_, Kit,' persisted the child, looking troubled.

'Not bad? Why, he's an awful old soft, Babe,' answered Kit, contemptuously. 'If you were a boy, you'd know.'

'He isn't old, anyhow. He's only twenty-eight; I asked him,' said Babs, eagerly.

'Oh, rats!' laughed Kit, who had quite got over his awkwardness by this time, and was rapidly forgetting that she was an invalid and that he had been told not to tease her. 'He may be twenty-eight perhaps, if you just count his birthdays, but he's as old as the hills for all that. He was born grown-up; that sort of chap always is.'

'He's been awfully kind to me, Kit,' persisted the child, her troubled look returning.

'You always think people are nicer than they are, don't you?' observed her brother, with gentle scorn. 'When we had that beast of a housekeeper who used to smack you and Robin, you always said her Sunday bonnet was beautiful, or something like that.'

'Oh, Kit!' was all Barbara felt capable of replying, and the boy rattled on heedlessly.

'That Doctor is the rottenest of rotters,' he declared in a cheerful tone. 'He only pretends to like you because you're what he calls a "case." If you'd got asthma, now, he'd treat you as if you were putting it all on, and make you feel a jolly humbug. _I_ know him!'

'Of course, you're always right, Kit,' said Babs, growing more unhappy every minute, 'but--but----'

'He treated us all like kids the first day you were ill,' said Christopher, scowling at the recollection; 'and once, when Jill was blubbing because you weren't so well, we got in a funk and went off on our own, Peter and I, to fetch him; and he wouldn't come. He said no one could do anything for you by just coming and looking at you, and we weren't to disturb him for nothing at all--or some such rot. Then we found that he'd cooked up an arrangement with Finny not to come unless _she_ sent for him. Just like him!'

Barbara was struggling feebly to keep back her tears. She could not think what was making her want to cry so much.

The boy had stopped scowling, and was chuckling softly to himself. Barbara held her breath, and thought that if he would only talk about something else, she might be able to keep from crying. Perhaps the table by the window might stop swimming about, too.

'We've scored one against him at last, though,' her brother was saying, in a voice that seemed suddenly to have gone a long way off. 'He must be quite at the other end of the gallery,' Babs thought. Yet some one was certainly sitting on the edge of her bed, because she could feel the mattress jumping up and down.

'We struck that little kid in the yard just now--the one who nearly gave you scarlet fever,' Christopher went on gaily. 'He came to know how you were, or something. Bobby Hearne, I think he called himself. Well, we got him to go to the doctor's house with a message from his aunt, who lives five miles t'other side of Crofts, to say that she had just fallen downstairs and nearly killed herself, and would he go to her at once! Thirty miles there and back, all for nothing! Rather a score, eh? It was my idea, too, not Peter's!'

He turned to Barbara for approval, and found her sobbing bitterly. She had heard every word he said, with horrible distinctness, though his voice had come from such a long way off. She had tried to stop him, but she could not make a sound till she began to cry.

'Babe! I say, don't! What's up, old girl?' exclaimed Kit, staring at her in consternation. At any time it was an event, to make the Babe cry, but now that she was so ill, he felt nothing short of a brute.

Jill had slipped into the room and was bending over the excited child.

'Kit doesn't understand--he doesn't know he's not really a beast--he isn't a beast, is he?' gasped Barbara, between her sobs. 'He's played a horrible trick on him--he's sent him seven times round the world; and I never meant him really to walk seven times round the world--you know I didn't, Jill. It's all my fault for turning him out of my kingdom--if I hadn't turned him out of my kingdom, he wouldn't be wandering seven times round----'

'Hush!' whispered Jill, and she gave Christopher a look that sent him stumbling out of the room in a mixture of bewilderment and remorse. Up and down the landing he paced, feeling desperately wicked and desperately foolish by turns, until Jill opened the door of the bedroom and beckoned to him. She held a thermometer in her hand, and she paid no attention whatever to the shamefaced inquiry he stammered out.

'Send Miss Finlayson here at once, and say I want the Doctor,' she commanded, and went hurriedly back into the room.

Clearly, she was very angry with him, and it had never seemed possible before that Jill could be angry with any one. But it was not this that suddenly made Kit turn cold and funny all over as he started along the gallery with Jill's message. He pulled up short with a jerk, and gave a little cry of dismay.

'What shall I do?' he exclaimed in a despairing tone. 'I've sent the Doctor fifteen miles in the opposite direction.'

* * * * *

It was nearing seven o'clock and growing dusk when Kit at last struck the high road between four and five miles below Crofts. It was a full ten-mile drive by the road from Wootton Beeches, but Kit had saved over two miles by taking the short cut across the fields. He stopped for the first time since he had started on his mad chase after the Doctor, and looked panting up and down the deserted road.

'I can't have been much more than three-quarters of an hour, and I bet it's four miles,' he muttered. The mud with which he was splashed up to the collar showed the kind of ground over which he had been travelling, and the way his breath was coming and going told how much of the four miles had been covered at a run. Now that he had exhausted his first impulse to rush after the Doctor and bring him back at any cost, he began to realise what an absurd thing he had set himself to do. Dr. Hurst had had an hour's start of him at least, and even the short cut across the fields would not make up for that. With a quick-trotting cob like his, he would have reached his destination easily by this time and discovered the trick that had been played upon him, and no effort on Kit's part would bring him back a moment sooner than he would be coming of his own accord. Besides, if it was any good going after him, Finny would have sent her man on horseback long before this, and he would have outdistanced Kit in any case.

'If only our bicycles had been there instead of at Crofts, I might have caught him up then,' cried the boy, as the hopelessness of the position dawned upon him.

Nothing answered him, and the road looked more dreary than ever. A good deal of rain had fallen that week, and the drip drip of the trees overhead added a kind of melancholy to everything. Christopher's quick imagination called up all the details of the scene he had left behind him: the unwonted anger of his cousin, the anxiety of Finny and Auntie Anna when he had rushed into the drawing-room with her message, and then their eagerness to ring the bell and send some one for the Doctor, whom he knew to be far away on a wild-goose chase of his own making. He pictured with vividness too the consternation that would be caused in the house when Finny's messenger returned from his fruitless errand, and the look that would come on Auntie Anna's face when Peter came in from his tramp with the other boys and explained the trick that had been played on the Doctor. No wonder he had hurried straight out of the house and struck blindly across the fields, without stopping to reflect whether it would be any good or not! Even now, though he knew how little he could do, he felt unable to remain inactive; and turning his face in the direction of Crofts, he once more broke into a run and hurried wildly along the muddy, desolate road.

He had been running about thirty-five minutes, only falling into a walk now and then to recover his breath, when the sound of wheels, coming from behind made him draw to the side of the road. He still trudged on, however, with his head down and his hands clenched, and he did not even trouble to look round when the vehicle caught him up and passed him. The light from the lamp flashed across his face as it rolled swiftly by; and immediately afterwards, the trap pulled up just ahead of him.

'Hullo! Is that Christopher Berkeley?' said a voice from above.

Kit staggered, and stood speechless. It was the Doctor's voice; there was no doubt about that. But how came he to be driving towards Crofts instead of away from it? His sudden appearance was so remarkable that the boy's head felt in a whirl.

'I--I thought----' he faltered.

The Doctor gave a quiet laugh, and climbed down from his seat.

'You thought I was green enough for anything, didn't you?' he observed. 'Just stand by the animal, will you, while I get out of my coat?'

Kit obeyed mechanically. Everything had turned so topsy-turvy all at once, that it seemed no more extraordinary for him to be doing meekly what the Doctor told him than it was for the Doctor to be struggling out of his greatcoat just as the rain was beginning to come on again.

'Then--then you didn't go to Bobby Hearne's aunt, after all?' he inquired stupidly.

'Not much!' answered the Doctor, with another short laugh. He had got his coat off by this time, and he held it out to Christopher peremptorily. 'Put this on, and look sharp!' he commanded.

'But----' stammered the boy, hanging back.

'Do you want to keep me here all night?' cried Dr. Hurst, impatiently; and as Kit still hesitated, he wrapped the coat quickly round him and lifted him bodily into the gig. Then he mounted beside him, and turned the animal's head. The next instant, they were bowling along towards home, at the rate of ten miles an hour.

For the first five minutes they did not speak. Then the Doctor jerked out a sharp inquiry.

'Aren't you going to ask after your sister?' he demanded.

Kit started. 'I was afraid you'd rag me for it,' he muttered awkwardly.

The Doctor flicked the horse with his whip. 'Sorry you think me such a brute,' he said shortly. He flicked the horse again, and played it a moment or two, as it tossed its head and jumped about. 'I don't think it's anything serious,' he went on. 'I gave her a soothing draught, and everything depends on the state in which she wakes up. But I think she'll be all right.'

The relief at Kit's heart nearly choked him. 'Did Jill tell you it was my fault?' he asked after a while.

'I gathered as much,' said Dr. Hurst. 'You mustn't excite her any more, you know, or I won't answer for the consequences. What was it all about, eh?'

He was evidently making a gigantic effort to be amiable, and Christopher felt he owed him something in return. Besides, it was a kind of relief to put the blame on himself.

'I said you were a rotter, and she said you weren't,' he jerked out; 'and I said you were only decent to her because she was an interesting case, and she said----'

'All right,' said the Doctor, hastily. He supposed truthfulness was an excellent thing in theory, but it added another terror to boys.

As they neared the village Christopher summoned up courage to ask one more question.

'Did you come out on purpose to bring me back?' he inquired with an effort.

'Yes,' said Dr. Hurst, briefly.

Christopher puzzled over this. 'But--but how did you know I'd gone after you?' he asked curiously.

'Jill told me you'd disappeared, and I guessed,' said Dr. Hurst. If it had not been so dark, Kit might have seen a smile flicker across the serious face of his companion.

'Did Jill think about me, then?' cried the boy, eagerly. 'Perhaps she isn't so wild with me after all!'

'Not so wild with you as you deserve, I dare say,' remarked Dr. Hurst. 'Indeed, it was because Miss Urquhart was making such an unnecessary fuss about you, that I promised to come and look for you.'

He thought that the boy, although a boy, would not notice the slip he had made just before in calling his pretty cousin by her first name; but Kit noticed fast enough. He had not much time, however, to think about it before they pulled up with a jerk at the back entrance to Wootton Beeches. He began to mumble out his thanks, while the Doctor helped him out of the overcoat and then put it on himself; but the young man cut him short.

'Do you suppose I drove all those miles in the rain, at the end of a hard day's work, for the sake of a scamp like you?' he growled; and Christopher was left staring after him in the darkness.

In the holidays supper was not before nine o'clock at Wootton Beeches, so the boy had plenty of time to make himself presentable before the bell rang. He looked eagerly round the drawing-room when he went into it, but only the three elder boys were there.

'Where's Jill?' he asked.

'Oh, it's you, is it?' observed Egbert, without answering him. As the eldest of the family, he felt that he ought to administer some sort of rebuke to Kit for the commotion he had caused in the household. Indeed, he had said as much to the others before the boy came in; but there was something about Kit that would make any one fight shy of rebuking him, when it came to the point. So Egbert was rather relieved than otherwise when Wilfred interrupted him.

'Jill's upstairs,' he said, looking over his book at Kit. 'She wants to be with the Babe when she wakes up, in case she's excited or anything.'

Kit flung himself into an arm-chair and whistled carelessly. Whatever his feelings were in the matter, he was not going to let the family see them. There was rather an awkward silence, which Peter broke by remarking that it was ten minutes to nine, upon which Egbert said something about a clean collar and went out of the room. There was a feeling of relief when he had gone, Egbert having reached the age when it was never quite possible to say whether he was going to side with the enemy or not.

'Egbert's awfully wild with you,' observed Peter, with smiling frankness. 'He says you ought to be kicked.'

'Let him do it,' grunted Kit, indifferently. Having given the Doctor a glimpse of his real feelings not so many minutes ago, he did not intend to betray himself again yet awhile.

Wilfred, who had been watching him closely, began slowly to understand. 'It's all right, Kit,' he said good-naturedly. 'Egbert never counts! He only does it because he's the eldest and thinks we've got to be reminded of it. Peter and I are with you!'

'Awfully kind of you, I'm sure,' answered Christopher, sarcastically. All the same, he stopped whistling and seemed inclined to come round; and Peter hastened to put in a conciliating word.

'Of course, we know you didn't mean to make the Babe excited,' he said. 'Jill says so herself.'

'Oh, shut up!' said Kit, ungraciously.

'As for the Doctor,' continued Wilfred, 'anybody is justified in ragging _him_.'

'Rather,' chimed in Peter. 'What do you think Egbert says about him?'

'Don't know and don't care,' rejoined Kit. Somehow, he felt it was rather mean to join in abusing the man who had gone out after him, all in the rain and the darkness. Still, he was sure he hated the fellow more than ever now, for had he not outwitted him and put him under an obligation to him at the same time? The boys did not notice his diffidence.

'Egbert says----' began Peter, and paused to give his words more effect; 'Egbert says--that--the Doctor is in love with Jill.'

Christopher sat up and gazed at him. For once his quick wit had not been quite so quick as Egbert's. So that was why Dr. Hurst had called her 'Jill'; and that was what he had meant just now by his parting words at the gate!

'Egbert's hit it,' he said morosely. 'The chap _is_ in love with Jill. Poor Jill!'

'That's what Wilfred says,' cried Peter, all ready as usual for mischief. 'He says Jill has got to be saved from him, or else----'

'Jill saved?' echoed Kit, scornfully. 'As if she needed any saving from _that_ idiot!'

'Well, I don't know,' objected Wilfred, shaking his head. 'Girls are so rum. Look at Merton major's aunt----'

'She isn't a girl, she's an _aunt_!' interrupted Christopher.

'Well, it's all the same, really,' declared Wilfred. 'Merton major says she only married that Indian chap because he bothered so, and because she wanted to be obliging.'

'And Jill is _awfully_ obliging, you know she is,' added Peter. 'You can't tell what may happen, if that Doctor goes on bothering her.'

'Well, what are we to do, then?' Kit condescended to ask. 'We can't lock him up, can we?'

'No,' admitted Wilfred, 'we can't lock him up. But there's lots of other things we can do. We can see that she's never left alone with him, for instance. Babs is always with them in the sickroom, that's one thing. But what happens when he comes out of the sickroom, and Jill walks along the gallery with him and sometimes even down to the front door? That's dangerous, anyhow.'

'In future,' said Peter, solemnly, 'one of us will always be on the look-out to join them the moment they come out of the sickroom. What else, Will?'

Wilfred reflected a moment. 'Sometimes,' he said at last, 'I've known her to be taking a walk in the garden, just as he happens to drive up; and then they stay talking ever so long before they go into the house. Once, he even made her take him round the conservatory. That must never happen again.'

'Never,' agreed Peter. '_I'll_ see to that.'

'Look here,' said Christopher, doubtfully; 'perhaps Jill won't like our hanging round her like that.'

'She may not like it _at the time_,' began Wilfred, impressively.

'But she'll thank us for it all her life afterwards,' concluded Peter, with great solemnity.

Jill's voice at the door made them start like guilty conspirators. She was much too preoccupied to notice their confusion, however.

'Has Kit come back?' she asked anxiously. Christopher sprang out of the arm-chair, and her face cleared. 'I'm so glad; I was afraid you were lost,' she said, taking his hand gently. 'Babs has just woke up,' she explained, as they went upstairs together, 'and she is still rather upset about something. I think you can calm her, if you will.'

Kit muttered something indistinctly, and she went on talking in her soft voice. 'The child has got into her head that you have done something to the Doctor, so I want you to assure her that it is all right. Will you, Kit dear?'

'I'm the biggest brute,' burst out the boy, 'that ever----'

'Nonsense!' said Jill, putting her hand over his mouth. Then she opened the door of Barbara's room and they went in.

Auntie Anna was sitting by the child, trying to soothe her.

'Bless your little heart!' she was saying as they entered. 'There's nothing the matter with the Doctor, my dear. What makes you think such a thing, eh?'

'You don't understand,' said the little fretful voice from the bed. 'Kit said--Kit said----'

Christopher pushed Jill on one side, and suddenly knew what he had got to do.

'That's all right, Babe; I was only rotting,' he said bluntly, and patted the hot little hand that lay on the counterpane.

The bright, wistful eyes were fixed searchingly on his face. 'But you've sent him wandering seven times round the world,' she murmured wearily. 'You said you had, Kit.'

'It's all right, Babe,' said Kit, again. 'He's come back now. I've just seen him.'

He only partly understood what she was talking about, but he seemed to know how to satisfy her, and the others drew back and left him to do it alone.

'You've seen him?' asked Babs, wonderingly. 'But----'

'You see,' said Kit, desperately, 'it doesn't take long to get round the world seven times, when--when you've got a smart little cob like his!'

The worried look faded out of the child's face, and she smiled for the first time. 'That isn't the reason, Kit,' she told him. 'It is because he was once a fairy prince.'

'Oh, is it?' remarked Kit.

The bright little eyes were closing sleepily, and the aching bandaged head fell sideways on the pillow.

'He has only got to kill the giant and rescue the princess now,' she whispered contentedly. And Kit went on stroking her hand till she was sound asleep.

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