He certainly did suppose so from quite recent experience, but he only apologized humbly for having his meaning mistaken, and allowed her to retrace her steps across the field without uttering any commonplace about meeting again as friends. Perhaps he knew quite well that when they did meet again she would be by far the most self-possessed of the two. The musician walked back to the inn and tried to persuade himself that he was a disappointed man. "My engagements never do seem to go right," he thought dejectedly, as he leaned out of the parlor window and looked vaguely among the fruit-trees. The door was pushed open from without, and a rush of red sunshine and childish footsteps came into the room. "Here I are, daddy! Where is you, daddy? I've been a naughty boy, _welly_ naughty Nanny says, 'cos I didn't say grace at tea-time. Why don't _you_ never say grace, my daddy? When I are a big man I aren't never going to say grace no more! Nanny says I are to kiss you free times, and did you bring any sweets for me, daddy?" "That will do, my son, yes," said Digby, nervously, as the boy clambered on his knee and proceeded to cover him with sticky embraces; "Nanny is always right, of course, but I think twice will be enough. Thanks. The sweets are in this pocket, so you need not turn out all the others. And you must not have any unless you stop jumping." The musician was not fond of children, and he always imagined his own was going to break his neck or damage himself in some way every time he came into the room. Sonny on his part had his own views concerning this mysterious daddy who came and went so strangely, and who was always going to chastise him severely according to Mrs. Haxtell, but never did anything worse than bring him sweets, and hold him by his sash until he was nearly suffocated. "And now for my story, daddy," he shouted, with his mouth full of sugar-plums. "Be quick please, my daddy; once upon a time--go on, daddy!" "Once upon a time," began the musician vaguely, and his thoughts strayed away to the lithesome figure swaying to and fro on the broken wall, and he tried hard to realize his crestfallen condition now that she had refused him. "Yes, daddy, yes; go on, please, my daddy: are you forgotten the end of my story, daddy dear?" pleaded the restless spirit in his arms. "Oh, dear, once upon a time there was--there was--oh, confound it all, there was a beautiful lady, wasn't there?" he began wearily. "A booful lady? _Welly_ booful, daddy?" "Very beautiful, my son." "Oh," solemnly, "and what sort of daddy did she have?" "Eh, what? Daddy? Oh--she didn't have one," said the musician, oblivious of morality; he was going through an eloquent speech in his mind which he might have said in the castle meadow if only he had not been so absurdly nervous. "Oh," said the baby voice, growing shrill with interest, "didn't she never have no daddy at all?"