And as Belinda repeated the words the boy lifted up the sack quite easily, and cut the string that fastened it, with his knife. And his clothes changed even as Belinda's had done. He wore now a sort of helmet with a plume of feathers in it, and a slashed dress; and he knelt down and opened the mouth of the sack. Ah! was not Belinda astonished, for out rushed the toys—such toys—all of them able to move about. One of them, a man on horseback, galloped away over a bridge, in the distance; another ran up the mountain with a donkey following after him. A woman and a little child next rushed down into the valley, so did a boy with a dog that did not look like a dog running behind him.
To all of these the youth said—
"Now be kind,
Find, find, find!"
Belinda gazed in astonishment, for never had she seen such toys before.
"Now," said the boy, as a white horse with a cart behind it emerged from a heap of carriages and toy soldiers, "jump in, and you and I will drive about the world till we find Blanche."
"But we can't possibly get in," returned Belinda; "it is too small for one, certainly for two."
"Do not be stupid," said the boy; "almost all mischief comes from stupidity; get in whilst I hold the horse."
How Belinda got into the little cart she did not know; but in it she was with the boy beside her, and he was driving as fast as he could go. And there was plenty of room for both.
The toy soldiers had mounted their horses and were riding behind them and at the side of them, for the boy had said—
"Mount quickly, guards."