“Or cloudlets sailing in the blue.”
“Like——”
“Really, gentlemen, I must curtail the exuberance of your poetic fancies, for poor Ralph and I are getting plaguey hungry.”
“Go on, sweet maid. We listen to thy voice as to a houri from paradise. Pray proceed.”
“You deserve not, sirs, to hear me speak. But—I was in the woods, and had culled a few fresh wild flowers to—to—well to make a garland for faithful doggie here. I paused for a moment at the forest’s edge to gaze upon the sighing sea, when two villains sprang from their lair and bound me in their iron embrace. Had I been anything save a poor gipsy girl, I should have fainted dead away, and been carried prisoner to some loathsome den, soon to be shipped to distant France. They offered me riches untold if I would but go willingly and join the stage somewhere abroad. My dancing they said would bring down the house, and all the world would lie at my feet.
“But I would not hear of their gold, and jewels, and their gallants gay.—What should I want with gallants gay?”
“While you have me, love,” interrupted the dwarf.
“And me,” sighed Gourmand.
“Had not honest Ralph rushed to my assistance, I should not now be here. But see, my hand is cut, and my wrist is blue and swollen!
“And that is all my little adventure,” she added.