We walk home, singing, and making poor jokes, as is our wont.

As we draw near the house with joyful foretastes of breakfast in our minds, with redly-flushed cheeks and merry eyes, I see Sir Roger leaning on the stone balustrade of the terrace, looking as if he were watching for us, and, indeed, no sooner does he catch sight of us, than he comes toward us.
"Do you like mushrooms ?" cry I, at the top of my voice, long before I have reached him, holding up my basket triumphantly.

"See, I have got the most of anybody, except Tou Tou!" I have met him by the end of this sentence.
"Do you like mushrooms ?" I repeat, lifting the lid, and giving him a peep into the creamy and pink-colored treasures inside, "oh, you _must_! if you do not, I shall have a _divorce_! I could not bear a difference of opinion upon such a subject." I have never given him time to speak, and now I look with appealing laughter into his silent face.
"Why, what is the matter ?" I cry, with an abrupt change of tone.

"What has happened?
How odd you look!" "Nothing has happened," he answers, trying to smile, but I see that it is quite against the grain, "only that I have had some not very pleasant news." "It is not any thing about--about the _Brat_!" cry I, stopping suddenly, seizing his arm with both hands, and turning, as I feel, extremely pale, while my thoughts fly to the only one of my beloveds that is out of my sight.
"About the _Brat_!" he echoes in surprise, "oh, dear no! nothing!" "Then I do not much care _who_ is dead ?" I answer, unfeelingly, drawing a long breath; "he is the only person _out_ of this house whose death would afflict me much, and I do not think that there is any one besides _us_ that _you_ are very devoted to, is there ?" "Why are you so determined that some one is _dead_ ?" he asks, smiling again, but this time a little more naturally; "is there nothing vexatious in the world but _death_ ?" "Yes," say I, laughing, despite myself, as my thoughts revert to my late employment, "there are _puff-balls_!"-- then, ashamed of having been flippant, and afraid of having been unsympathetic, I add hastily: "I wish you would tell me what it is! I am sure, _when I hear_, I shall be vexed too; but you see as long as I do not know what it is, I cannot, can I ?" "There is no time now," he says, glancing toward father, whose head appears through the dining-room windows.

"See! they are going to breakfast!--afterward I will tell you--afterward--and child--" (putting his hands on my shoulders, and essaying to look at me with an altogether cheered and careless face,) "do not you worry your head about it!--eat your breakfast with an easy mind; after all, it is nothing very bad!--it could not be any thing _very_ bad, as long as--." He stops abruptly, and adds hastily, "let us have a look at your mushrooms! well, you _have_ a quantity!" "Yes, have not I ?" say I, triumphantly, "more than any of them, except Tou Tou--." Then, not quite satisfied with the impression our late talk has left upon me: "General!" say I, lowering my face and reddening, "I hope you do not think that I am _quite_ a baby because I like childish things--gathering mushrooms--running about with the boys--talking to Jacky.