Numbers six and seven went to Covent Garden in a hamper. They say black-beetles are excellent eating.
The whole seven had a narrow escape with their lives just after Sybil left us. They over-ate themselves on snails, and Mrs. Hedgehog had to stay at home and nurse them. I kept my eye on our neighbours and brought her the news.
"Christian has come home," I said, one day. "The Queen has given him a pardon."
"Then he did take the pheasants' eggs?" said Mrs. Hedgehog.
"Certainly not," said I. "In the first place it wasn't eggs, and in the second place it was Black Basil who took whatever it was, and he has confessed to it."
"Then if Christian didn't do it, how is it that he has been forgiven?" said Mrs. Hedgehog.
"I can't tell you," said I; "but so it is. And he is at this moment with the clergywoman and the tinker-mother."
"Where is Sybil?" asked Mrs. Hedgehog.
I did not know then, and I am not very clear about her now. I never saw her again, but either I heard that she had married Black Basil, and that they had gone across the water to some country where the woods are bigger than they are here, or I have dreamt it in one of my winter naps.
I am inclined to think it must be true, because I always regarded Sybil as somewhat proud and unsociable, and I think she would like a big wood and very few neighbours.