“Think how that governess has treated me,” growled Puffy.  “When I was in your nursery, and was old and a little worn out, how I would’ve appreciated care—­and repair!”

“The Employment Agency for her,” said the Piper.

“I’ll attend to that,” added the Policeman.

Gwendolyn’s father had been gathering candles, and had seemed not to see what was transpiring.  Now as if he was satisfied with his load, he suddenly started away in the direction he had come.  His firm stride jolted the talking-machine not a little.  The quacking cries recommenced—­

“Please to pay me....  Let me sell you...!  Let me borrow...!  Won’t you hire...! Quack!  Quack!  Quack!”

After him hurried the others in an excited group.  The Piper led it, his plumbing-tools jangling, his pig-poke a-swing.  And Gwendolyn saw him grin back over a shoulder craftily—­then lay hold of her father and tighten a strap.

She trudged in the rear.  She had found her father—­and he could see only the candles he sought, and the money in his grasp!  She was out in the open with him once more, where she was free to gambol and shout—­yet he was bound by his harness and heavily laden.

“I might just as well be home,” she said to Puffy, disheartened.

“Wish your father’d let me sharpen his ears,” whispered the Man-Who-Makes-Faces.  He shifted the hand-organ to the other shoulder.

The Doctor had a basket on his arm.  He peered into it.  “I haven’t a thing about me,” he declared, “but a bread-pill.”

“How would a glass of soda-water do?” suggested the Policeman, in an undertone.

“Why, of course!”

It had happened before that the mere mention of a thing brought that dying swiftly.  Now it happened again.  For immediately Gwendolyn heard the rush and bubble and brawl of a narrow mountain-stream.  Next, looking down from the summit of a gentle rise, she saw the smoky windings of the unbottled soda!

The Doctor was a man of action.  Though the Policeman had made his suggestion only a second before, here was the former already leaning down to the stream; and, having dipped, was walking in the midst of the little company, glass in hand.

Gwendolyn ran forward.  “Fath-er!” she called; “please have a drink!”

Her father shook his head.  “I’m not thirsty,” he declared, utterly ignoring the proffered glass.

“I—­I was ’fraid he wouldn’t,” sighed Gwendolyn, head down again, and scuffing bare feet in the cool damp grass of the stream-side—­yet not enjoying it!  The lights had changed:  The double-ended candles had disappeared.  Filling the Land once more with a golden glow were countless tapers—­electric, gas, and kerosene.  She was back where she had started, threading the trees among which she had danced with joy.

But she was far from dancing now!

“Let’s not give up hope,” said a voice—­the Doctor’s.  He was holding up the glass before his face to watch the bubbles creaming upon its surface.  “There may be a sudden turn for the better.”