It did indeed seem reasonable not to take so irrevocable a step as _that_, without due enquiry. “I’ll certainly _ask_ about it, first,” I said. “Besides, I don’t know yet whether you would be _worth_ eating!” “I guess I’m _deliciously_ good to eat,” Bruno remarked in a satisfied tone, as if it were something to be rather proud of. “And what are you doing here, Bruno?” “_That’s_ not my name!” said my cunning little friend. “Don’t oo know my name’s ‘Oh Bruno!’? That’s what Sylvie always calls me, when I says mine lessons.” “Well then, what are you doing here, oh Bruno?” “Doing mine lessons, a-course!” With that roguish twinkle in his eye, that always came when he knew he was talking nonsense. “Oh, _that’s_ the way you do your lessons, is it? And do you remember them well?” “Always can ’member _mine_ lessons,” said Bruno. “It’s _Sylvie’s_ lessons that’s so _dreffully_ hard to ’member!” He frowned, as if in agonies of thought, and tapped his forehead with his knuckles. “I _ca’n’t_ think enough to understand them!” he said despairingly. “It wants _double_ thinking, I believe!” “But where’s Sylvie gone?” “That’s just what _I_ want to know!” said Bruno disconsolately. “What ever’s the good of setting me lessons, when she isn’t here to ’splain the hard bits?” “_I’ll_ find her for you!” I volunteered; and, getting up, I wandered round the tree under whose shade I had been reclining, looking on all sides for Sylvie. In another minute I _again_ noticed some strange thing moving among the grass, and, kneeling down, was immediately confronted with Sylvie’s innocent face, lighted up with a joyful surprise at seeing me, and was accosted, in the sweet voice I knew so well, with what seemed to be the _end_ of a sentence whose beginning I had failed to catch. “—and I think he ought to have _finished_ them by this time. So I’m going back to him. Will you come too? It’s only just round at the other side of this tree.” It was but a few steps for _me_; but it was a great many for Sylvie; and I had to be very careful to walk slowly, in order not to leave the little creature so far behind as to lose sight of her. To find Bruno’s _lessons_ was easy enough: they appeared to be neatly written out on large smooth ivy-leaves, which were scattered in some confusion over a little patch of ground where the grass had been worn away; but the pale student, who ought by rights to have been bending over them, was nowhere to be seen: we looked in all directions, for some time, in vain; but at last Sylvie’s sharp eyes detected him, swinging on a tendril of ivy, and Sylvie’s stern voice commanded his instant return to _terra firma_ and to the business of Life. [Illustration: SYLVIE’S TRUANT-PUPIL] “Pleasure first and business afterwards” seemed to be the motto of these tiny folk, so many hugs and kisses had to be interchanged before anything else could be done.