Mr. and Mrs. Devering were much pleased with this arrangement and Madame de Valkonski listened attentively to this interesting backwoods story.
Mrs. Duff had fallen asleep, and seeing this Mrs. Devering came over to the merry group of children and said in a low voice, "Please take your tea and cakes out on the lawn. Your aunt and the princess have not our steady backwoods nerves."
I kept one ear pricked toward the boys and girls and the other toward the grown-ups. The latter were on the Bolshy subject and I heard Mrs. Devering begging Madame de Valkonski to stay all night so that she would see him at the chapel in the morning.
The children did not listen to this conversation. They began to dance on the lawn and finally danced themselves up to the stable and throwing themselves on their ponies had a good gallop down the lake which lasted till supper time.
Dallas did not go with them. He and I remained near his mother, who slept till the bugle sounded for supper.
"I wonder," said my boy in a low voice, "I wonder how poor Bolshy will take all this. I imagine that he will be flabbergasted at the sight of this little bit of Russia," and he glanced admiringly at his mother's friend.
CHAPTER XXX AN END AND A BEGINNING
Now that my boy has found his mother and we are going home, it seems as if I ought to bring my story to a close, though I hate to stop talking.