THE servant who acted as my keeper suddenly changed her manner toward me about this time. She talked with me in a friendly way, and she sang to me, trying to teach me to sing with her. I refused to do that, because I was unhappy and did not feel like singing. But I rather liked to hear her sing, as she had a pretty good voice. Still, in my childish way, I distrusted the girl. I could not understand why she had been so unkind to me before, if her present kindness was sincere. She begged me to go out of doors with her, and promised of her own accord that I should sit down and shut my eyes whenever I pleased. After a day or two, I so far yielded as to go out with her for an hour and have a romp with Prince. But I resolutely refused, then or on succeeding days, to sit down and shut my eyes, and call the fairy people. I felt, somehow, that it would compromise my dignity to accept surreptitiously and from a servant a privilege which was forbidden to me by the servant’s master and mistress. Still, I went out for a little while every day. The girl called our outings “larks,” which puzzled me a good deal, as I knew there were no larks in the town. Finally, one brilliant moonlight night, as I sat looking out of the window, the girl, as if moved by some sudden impulse, said:— “Let’s go out for a lark in the moonlight. I’ll put your cloak and bonnet on you, and it will do you good.” I consented, and we quickly made ourselves ready. Just after we had got out of doors, I noticed that the girl had a satchel in her hand; and when I questioned her about it, she said that she wanted to make believe that we were two ladies going to travel; “and ladies always have satchels when they travel,” she explained. We wandered about for a little while, and then the girl led the way to the extreme corner of the grounds, a spot which could not be seen from the house even in the daytime, because of the trees. There was a little gate there, which opened into a road, and the girl proposed that we should pass through it for some reason which I cannot now remember. We had walked only a little way beyond the gate when we came to a carriage which was standing still, with a big man on the box and a tall, slender man standing by the open door of the vehicle. When this man turned his face toward me in the moonlight, I recognised him. He was my father! He stooped and put his arms about me tenderly, laughing a little, as he always had done when talking with me, but stopping the laugh every moment or two to kiss me. Then he told me to get into the carriage so that we might go for a drive. When I had got in, he gave the servant girl some money, and said:— “If you keep your mouth shut and know nothing, there’ll be another hundred for you. I shall know if you talk, and if you do there’ll be no money for you. I’ll send the money, if you don’t talk, in two weeks, in care of the bank.”