who was on the front porch watching the battle and screaming with joy at every man that fell dead.  One dark-faced man was struck with a bullet and was hurt.  He saw the child laughing at him and his heart was full of revenge.  So that night, when all had gone to bed, the old dark-faced man went softly in the house and got the little girl and set the house on fire.  And he carried her out in the mountains, and is that worth a quarter?”

“Good heavens, no!” said Anne.  “How dare you leave us in such harrowing suspense?”

“Well, a whole lot more happened, because all the while Rachel was asleep.  When she woke up, she did not know where under the sun she was.  So she walked along for about an hour and came to a little village, and after a few minutes she came to a large rock, and guess who she met?  She met her father, and when he saw her he hugged her so hard that when he got through she did not have any breath left in her.  And they walked along, and after a while they came to the wood, and it was now about six o’clock, and it was very dark, and just then nine robbers jumped out from behind the trees, and they took a pistol and shot Rachel’s father, and the child fainted.  Her papa was dead, so she dug a hole and buried him, and went right back home.  And of course that was all, and if I had that snake, I wouldn’t try to scare you with it, father, anyhow.”

So Colonel Musgrave gave his son a well-earned coin, as the colonel considered, and it having been decreed, “Now, father, you tell a story,” obediently read aloud from a fat red-covered book.  The tale was of the colonel’s selecting, and it dealt with a shepherdess and a chimney-sweep.

“And so,” the colonel perorated, “the little china people remained together, and were thankful for the rivet in grandfather’s neck, and continued to love each other until they were broken to pieces—­And the tale is a parable, my son.  You will find that out some day.  I wish you didn’t have to.”

“But is that all, father?”

“You will find it rather more than enough, sonnikins, when you begin to interpret.  Yes, that is all.  Only you are to remember always that they climbed to the very top of the chimney, where they could see the stars, before they decided to go back and live upon the parlor table under the brand-new looking-glass.  For the stars are disconcertingly unconcerned when you have climbed to them, and so altogether unimpressed by your achievement that it is the nature of all china people to slink home again, precisely as your Rachel did—­and as Mrs. Charteris will assure you.”

“I?” said Anne.  “Now, honestly, Rudolph, I was thinking you ought not to let him sit upon the grass, because he really has a cold.  And if I were you, I would give him a good dose of castor-oil to-night.  Some people give it in lemon-juice, I know, but I found with my boy that peppermint is rather less disagreeable.  And you could easily send somebody over to the store at the station——­”