“Moppet,” said Mr. Danby, “the hot cakes are getting into your head.  I propose an adjournment to Bedfordshire.”

“No! no! NO!  Uncle Tom.  We ain’t to go yet, is we?” pleaded the child, snuggling close up to Sir John’s waistcoat, with a settled conviction that he was the higher authority.  The lapse in grammar was the momentary result of excitement.  In a general way Moppet’s tenses and persons were as correct as if she had been twenty.

“I think you ought to be tired, after your long journey,” said the baronet.

“But it wasn’t a long journey.  We had dinner first, and in the morning we walked on the Hoe.  Isn’t that a funny name for a place?  And we saw the sea, and Uncle Tom told us of the—­”

“Spanish Arcadia,” interrupted Laddie, who felt it was his turn now, “and how Drake and the other captains were playing bowls on the Hoe, just where we were standing that very minute, when the news of the Spanish ships came and they went off to meet them; and there was a storm, and there was no fighting wanted, for the storm smashed all the ships and they went back to King Philip without any masts, and Queen Elizabeth went on horseback to Tilbury, and that was the end of the Arcadia.”

“For an historical synopsis I don’t call that bad,” said Mr. Danby; “nevertheless, I recommend Bedfordshire if our little friends have finished their tea.”

“I have,” said Lassie, with a contented yawn.

Moppet did not want to go to bed.  She had eaten less than the other two, but she had talked more, and had slapped the table, and had made faces, while Lassie and Laddie had been models of good manners.

“I wish you wouldn’t call it Bedfordshire,” she said, shaking her head vindictively at Mr. Danby.  “It makes it worse to go to bed when people make jokes about it!”

Mr. Danby came around to where she sat, and took her up in his arms as if she had been a big doll instead of a small child.

“Say good-night to Sir John,” he said.

Moppet stooped her face down to the baronet’s, and pursed up her red lips in the prettiest little kiss, which was returned quite heartily.

“Take her away, Danby:  she is much too excited, and she is the funniest little thing I ever saw.  Good-night, my dears,” he said to the others, as he rose and walked toward the door.  “I hope you will spend a happy Christmas at Place.  Adela, be sure the little things are comfortable, and that Nurse Danby’s instructions are obeyed.”

The children laughed at this rude mention of Mr. Danby, and went off to bed repeating the phrase “Nurse Danby” with much chuckling and giggling.

* * * * *

Sir John Penlyon had just seated himself on the great oaken settle in the chimney-corner, after somewhat languidly performing his duty as host.  Moppet walked straight to him, clambered on his knee, and nestled her head in his waistcoat, gazing up at him with very much the same dumb devotion he had seen in the topaz eyes of a favorite Clumber spaniel.