"Hullo!" he said, when he saw the two little children coming to meet him. "Well, I never! And what may you two be doing out at this hour?"
Diana gazed up at him.
"I's going to the garding," she said. "I's to meet Iris in garding. We is to 'cide whether it's to be a pwivate or a public funeral."
"Bless us and save us!" said the man.
"Don't mind her," said Orion; "she's not well. She fell off a horse last night, and there's something gone wrong inside her head. I s'pect something's cracked there. She's talking a lot of nonsense. We has runned away, and we is desperate hungry. Can you give us a drink of milk?"
"Well, to be sure," said the man, smacking his lips as he spoke. "I never saw anything like this afore, and never heard anything like it, neither. Why, it's like a page out of a printed book. And so you has run away, and you belong to the circus, I guess. Why, you are in your circus dresses."
"See my bow and arrow," said Diana. "I is the gweat Diana; I is the gweatest huntwess in all the world."
"To be sure; to be sure!" said the man.
"And I am Orion," said the boy, seeing that Diana's words were having a good effect. "You can watch me up in the sky on starful nights. I am a great giant, and this is my girdle, and this is my sword."
"I never heard anything so like a fairy tale afore," said the man. "Are you sure you are human, you two little mites?"