“That you are, missy, and hungry, too, I guess.  You shall have some beautiful hare soup.”

“I don’t want hare soup,” answered Diana; “I want what that woman pwomised—­stwawberries and k’eam, and milk and cake—­and then, perhaps, a little soup.  I don’t want soup to begin.”

“Well,” said the old woman, “we hasn’t got no strawberries, nor no milk, nor no cake—­we are very poor folks here, missy.  A little lady must be content with what she can get, unless, my dear, you would like to pay ’andsome for it.”

“I has nothing to pay with,” answered Diana.  “I would, if I had the money, but I hasn’t got none.  I’s sossy,” she continued, looking full at Mother Rodesia as she spoke, “that you big, big woman told such awfu’ lies.  But, now that we has come, we’ll take a little hare soup.  Orion, you stand near me, and don’t any of you dirty peoples come up too close, ’cos I can’t abear dirty peoples.  I is the gweatest shot in all the world, and Orion, he’s a giant.”

Two or three men had approached at that moment, and they all began to laugh heartily when poor little pale Orion was called a giant.

“You can see him in the sky sometimes on starful nights,” continued Diana, “and he has got a belt and a sword.”

“Well, to be sure, poor little thing,” said Mother Rodesia, “she must be a bit off her head, but she’s a fine little spirited thing for all that.  I think she would just about do.  You come along here for a minute, Jack, and let me talk to you.”

The man called Jack moved a few steps away, and Mother Rodesia followed him.  They began to talk together in low and earnest voices.  At first the man shook his head as he listened to Mother Rodesia, but by degrees he began to agree with some suggestion she was making, and finally he nodded emphatically, and at last was heard to say: 

“It shall be done.”

Meanwhile Diana, with one arm clasped protectingly round Orion’s waist, was partaking of the soup which old Mother Bridget had ladled into a little bowl.  Orion was provided with a similar bowl of the very excellent liquid.  The soup contained meat and vegetables, pieces of bread and quantities of good gravy, and, as Diana and Orion were very hungry indeed, they ate up their portions, while the gypsy children clustered round them, coming closer and closer each minute.  Diana’s eyes, however, were as black as theirs, and her manner twice as spirited.  She would not allow them to approach too close.

“You had best not take lib’ties,” she said.  “I is a gweat lady; I is Diana, the biggest shot in all the world.”

“Oh, lawk! hark to her,” cried one of the boys.  “I wonder if you could shoot me, little miss?”

“Shoot you, boy?” cried Diana.  “That I could.  You would be shotted down dead if I was to take up my bow and use my arrow.”

At last the children had finished the contents of their bowls, and rose solemnly to their feet.