The man looked from one to the other. It amused him to listen to such contending voices from these two blurred spots of whiteness in the dark; while he himself, full of an unutterably sweet indolence, acted as their languid umpire. He was delighted, too, as well as amazed, by the intense gravity with which Gerda took this trifling disagreement. How quaint girls were! If he had caught Lob stealing his very watch in the darkness and transferring it to his own pocket, he felt, just then, that he would hardly have noticed the incident!

“Haven’t I won over she, Mr. Solent?” whined the child. “I found thik nestie fields and fields away from where us be now. ’Twere in monstrous girt hedge, thik nestie, and I scratched myself cruel getting my hand in.”

“Why haven’t you got the egg, then?” insisted the girl, in a hard, accusing voice.