“Are they?  I don’t like dead people.”

“Come, come, Moppet, suppose they’re not people at all—­no more than a rocking-horse is a real live horse.  We’ll pull one of them down to-morrow and look inside him, and then you’ll be satisfied.”

The larger scarlet mite, larger by about an inch, older by a year, was standing before the fire, gravely warming her hands, spreading them out before the blaze as much as hands so tiny could spread themselves.  The boy was skipping about the hall, looking at everything, the armed warriors especially, and not at all afraid.

“They’re soldiers, aren’t they?” he asked.

“Yes, Laddie.”

“I should like to be dressed like that, and go into a battle and kill lots of people.  I couldn’t be killed myself, could I, if I had that stuff all over me?”

“Perhaps not, Laddie; but I don’t think it would answer.  You’d be an anachronism.”

“I wouldn’t mind being a nackerism if it saved me from being killed,” said Laddie.

“Come, little ones, come and be presented to your host,” said Mr. Danby, as the footman opened the library door; and they all poured in—­Danby, Adela, and the children—­the smallest running in first, her sister and the boy following, considerably in advance of the grown-ups.

Moppet ran right into the middle of the room as fast as her little red legs could carry her; then seeing Sir John sitting where the bright lamplight shown full upon his pale elderly face, with its strongly marked features, black eyebrows, and silvery-gray hair, she stopped suddenly as if she had beheld a Gorgon, and began to back slowly till she brought herself up against the silken skirt of Adela Hawberk’s gown; and in that soft drapery she in a manner absorbed herself, till there was nothing to be seen of the little neatly rounded figure except the tip of a bright red cap and the toes of two bright red gaiters.

The elder mite had advanced less boldly, and had not to beat so ignominious a retreat.  She was near enough to Mr. Danby to clutch his hand, and holding by that she was hardly at all frightened.

The boy, older, bolder, and less sensitive than either of the girls, went skipping around the library as he had skipped about the hall, looking at things and apparently unconscious of Sir John Penlyon’s existence.

“How d’ye do, Danby?” said Sir John, holding out his hand as his old friend advanced to the fire, the little red girl hanging on to his left hand, while he gave his right to his host.  “Upon my word, I began to think you were never coming back.  You’ve been an unconscionable time.  One would suppose you had to fetch the children from the world’s end.”

“I had to bring them to the world’s end, you might say.  Boscastle is something more than a day’s journey from London in the depth of winter.”

“And are these the children?  Good heavens, Danby! what could you be thinking about to bring us such morsels of humanity?”