“It’s there now, anyhow,” said her daughter.  “What on earth are we to do?  I wish we had never come.”

The boar-pig had drawn nearer to the gate for a closer inspection of the human intruders, and stood champing his jaws and blinking his small red eyes in a manner that was doubtless intended to be disconcerting, and, as far as the Stossens were concerned, thoroughly achieved that result.

“Shoo!  Hish!  Hish!  Shoo!” cried the ladies in chorus.

“If they think they’re going to drive him away by reciting lists of the kings of Israel and Judah they’re laying themselves out for disappointment,” observed Matilda from her seat in the medlar tree.  As she made the observation aloud Mrs. Stossen became for the first time aware of her presence.  A moment or two earlier she would have been anything but pleased at the discovery that the garden was not as deserted as it looked, but now she hailed the fact of the child’s presence on the scene with absolute relief.

“Little girl, can you find some one to drive away—­” she began hopefully.

“Comment?  Comprends pas,” was the response.

“Oh, are you French? Etes vous francaise?”

“Pas de tous.  ’Suis anglaise.”

“Then why not talk English?  I want to know if—­”

“Permettez-moi expliquer.  You see, I’m rather under a cloud,” said Matilda.  “I’m staying with my aunt, and I was told I must behave particularly well to-day, as lots of people were coming for a garden party, and I was told to imitate Claude, that’s my young cousin, who never does anything wrong except by accident, and then is always apologetic about it.  It seems they thought I ate too much raspberry trifle at lunch, and they said Claude never eats too much raspberry trifle.  Well, Claude always goes to sleep for half an hour after lunch, because he’s told to, and I waited till he was asleep, and tied his hands and started forcible feeding with a whole bucketful of raspberry trifle that they were keeping for the garden-party.  Lots of it went on to his sailor-suit and some of it on to the bed, but a good deal went down Claude’s throat, and they can’t say again that he has never been known to eat too much raspberry trifle.  That is why I am not allowed to go to the party, and as an additional punishment I must speak French all the afternoon.  I’ve had to tell you all this in English, as there were words like ‘forcible feeding’ that I didn’t know the French for; of course I could have invented them, but if I had said nourriture obligatoire you wouldn’t have had the least idea what I was talking about. Mais maintenant, nous parlons francais.”

“Oh, very well, tres bien,” said Mrs. Stossen reluctantly; in moments of flurry such French as she knew was not under very good control. “La, a l’autre cote de la porte, est un cochon—­”

“Un cochon?  Ah, le petit charmant!” exclaimed Matilda with enthusiasm.