'The mistress has the biggest heart in the world, my dear, and the master never says a cross word to nobody!'
Bobby felt cheered by her tone, and his doubts utterly vanished when he was held in the close clasp of his stepmother.
'We are going to keep you, Bobby, and I must be prepared to see two small children go off every day with my Wanderer. We are going to make this summer a holiday, to build up and strengthen your father, who has been very ill, and next winter, if we are spared, we must all set to work in earnest. Lessons and school for the little ones, real hard writing for your father and me. Now, darling, True is calling to you from the garden. Run out to her, and the air and sunshine will bring colour into those pale cheeks of yours.'
'Me and Nobbles likes to be darlings,' Bobby informed True a short time afterwards. 'We aren't darlings with Nurse or grandmother.'
When his father returned, Bobby approached him, almost trembling to hear his fate.
'Well, little chap,' Mr. Allonby said, 'it has been rather a stormy scene, but I've got you for good and all. And if I had known your grandmother considered children such a trouble I never would have left you with her all this time. Your nurse is going to drive over this afternoon and wish you good-bye. She will bring your clothes. Do you think you will get on with us without a nurse? We are very poor folk, you know, until I write this big book of travels that is going to bring us fame and money, and then—well, you ask True what will happen.'
Bobby smiled contentedly. Things had not turned out quite according to his expectations, but he was well pleased to have a little playfellow in True, and though she adopted a slightly superior and motherly air with him, she was a deferential listener to any of Nobbles' exploits. She had no difficulty in believing that he was alive; in fact she was quite ready to explain his existence in a manner quite new to Bobby.
'You see,' she said, 'a wicked fairy must have turned him into a stick. He really was a very brave good prince, but he set free a beautiful princess, who had been a prisoner in the wicked fairy's house, and the way he did it was dressing in her clothes and staying behind while she put on his and rode away. Then the wicked fairy was so angry when she found out the trick that she turned him into a stick and said he must stay like it till someone broke the spell.'
'What's a spell?' asked Bobby.
'Oh, there are lots of spells. The sleeping beauty was in one, you know. The spell was that she would sleep till a prince kissed her. What we've got to do is to find out the spell for Nobbles, and when we do the right thing to him he'll wake up, and come alive, and be a prince again.'