'Thank your kindness, Mary.' 'But breakfast is all ready, sir.' 'Well, ask Lotty to come in this morning and keep me company.' He had, with his own hands, lit the stove half an hour ago, and the fire burned bright and clear in the frosty atmosphere. 'She will be delighted, I'm sure, but'---- 'But what, Mary?' 'You'll have to carry her through the snow-wreaths.' And when Antony looked out, lo and behold! he found that the 'Gipsy Queen' was embedded in a bank of snow as high as the steps themselves, and that a bank fully fourteen feet in height and shaped like a huge beach-comber separated the camp from the highway. A shovel and a spade were part of the caravan outfit, but this snow was far too powdery to be dug; so, enveloping himself in oilskin leggings and coat, Antony left Mary to put the caravan straight and lay the cloth, while he scrambled through to the back steps of the 'Silver Queen.' He found Lotty dressed as neatly and prettily as if she were going to be a Gipsy May-Queen. She gave him smiling welcome, and appeared quite delighted with this turn affairs had taken. 'Oh, isn't it beautiful and romantic, Mr Blake?' 'No doubt of that, dear; but goodness knows how many days, weeks, or months we may have to lie here.' 'And I hope it will be for quite a long, long time. What fun Wallace and I will have!' There was a large kettle standing over the stove. 'Pray, what is in there, Lotty?' said Antony. 'Oh, that is snow cooking for tea, you know.' And then Antony remembered that there was not a drop of water in either caravan. 'Breakfast is waiting, Mr Blake, and will soon get cold,' said Mary, bustling in. 'Come on, Lotty!' He was standing beneath the steps, the snow high above his knees, and holding out a pair of mittened hands. 'Jump into my oilskin, dear.' 'What! Have I to be carried like a baby?' 'Like the baby you are. Jump!' Lotty jumped, and was soon deposited high and dry in the large caravan. Wallace had gone away somewhere a jet black dog; he now returned a pure white one, and it took Antony full two minutes to make him presentable. Real finnan-haddocks (hot, done to a turn, and served up between snow-white towels), oat-cakes, butter as sweet as spring primroses, new-laid duck-eggs, and coffee whose fragrance and aroma filled the whole saloon. Antony was hungry, with a hill or mountain hunger, and gay with it all. So, too, was his little companion. Kind and generous treatment spoil some children; but Lotty was far too old-fashioned, pretty and lady-like though she was, to be spoiled. 'Isn't this life idyllic, my little pal?' 'I'm sure, Mr Blake, it is perfectly idyllic. But what does idyllic mean?' 'It means just this,' he answered with youthful rapture, 'it means all the beauty and the romance and peace and poetry we see around us both outside and in. That is idyllic.' CHAPTER XIX. SPORTING-TIME IN WOODS AND WILDS.