“Well,” she said, “isn’t you going to begin?”

“Yes,” he replied; “but what do you want the bow and arrow for?”

“To get my enemies shotted.”

“Your enemies?  What folly this is, Di.  You have not got any enemies.”

“Haven’t I?  I know better.  I won’t talk to you about it, ’Pollo.”

“All right,” replied Apollo; “you must tell me, or I won’t help you.”

“There, now!” said Diana, “you’s got a howid fwown between your bwows.  I don’t like it; you’s going to be obs’nate.  I don’t like obs’nate boys.”

“I mean what I say,” replied Apollo.  “I know you of old, you monkey.  You are up to mischief, and I insist upon hearing all about it.”

Diana gazed at him solemnly.

“Does you like Aunt Jane?” she said, after a pause.

“I can’t say that I do,” replied Apollo.

“Does you like that old thing in the nursery—­Simpson, they calls her?”

“I can’t say that I do,” replied the boy again.

“They is sort of enemies of yours, isn’t they?” asked Diana.

“Oh!  I don’t know that I go as far as that,” replied Apollo.

“But if Aunt Jane makes you do howid lessons all day, and if Simpson is always fussing you and getting you to wash your face and hands, and if you can’t never go with fellows, and if you is kept in—­and if—­and if—­”

“Oh! don’t begin all that, Di,” said Apollo.  “Where is the use of making the worst of things?”

“Well, I want to make the best of things,” said Diana.  “I want to have our enemies shotted wight off.”

“Do you mean to tell me,” said Apollo, laughing, “that you wish to shoot Aunt Jane and that old woman in the nursery?”

“I wish to pwick ’em first time, and then, if they is naughty again, to have ’em shotted down dead.  Why not?  Mother, who is up in the heavens, called me after gweat Diana, and Diana always shotted her enemies.”

“Oh, dear me, Di!  I think you are the queerest little thing in the world,” said Apollo.  “But now, look here,” he added, “I am older than you, and I know that what you are thinking about is very wrong.  I can’t make you a bow and arrow to do that sort of thing.”

Diana looked bitterly disappointed.  She could master, or she fancied she could master, Aunt Jane, Simpson, and Miss Ramsay, but she knew well, from past experience, that she could not master Apollo.

“What is to be done?” she said.  She thought for a long time.  “Would not you like a bow and arrow just all your own, to shoot at the twees with?” she asked at last artfully.

“Oh, I have no objection to that!” answered Apollo.  “It seems right that I should have one; does it not, Di?  But of course I would never do any mischief with it.  Why, little thing, you have been talking the most awful rot.”

“Well, you can make a bow and arrow for your very own self,” said Diana.

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t, but you’ll have to promise—­”