_Below, the open space through every nook, Of the wide area twinkles, is alive With heads; the midway region and above Is thronged with staring pictures and huge scrolls, Dumb proclamations of the Prodigies, With chattering monkeys dangling from their poles And children whirling in their roundabouts, With those that stretch the neck and strain the eyes, And crack the voice in rivalship ..._ THE PRELUDE After the village children had disappeared into the wood, Clare turned to join her brothers. She found them clustered round Fieldmouse and Robin. “Whose fortune shall I tell now, good people?” Mousie was saying, her upper lip drawn into a point, so that her mouth was shaped like the tiniest V. “Mine, please,” said Clare, “how do you do it?” “O,” said Rob; “she learnt it in our great adventure; she learnt it from the gipsies. Didn’t you know we’d had a great adventure?” “No, when?” “We were stolen by gipsies, and kept away from Mother and Father a whole six weeks,” said Robin. “And then we only got back by being tied up in bags, so that they thought we were barley.” “Oh, tell us all about it,” cried the others. And as they cared to hear it, perhaps you will care to hear it, and so here is their story from beginning to end. _The Story of the Children and the Gipsies._ Charlotte and Henry Spencer lived with their father and mother at Blenheim Palace, in the County of Oxfordshire. Blenheim Palace was the name of their home, and it may be seen to this day, standing in all its magnificence in the midst of a great park. For Charlotte and Henry were the children of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, and Blenheim Palace was the gift of a grateful nation to their great-grandfather, John Churchill, the first duke. He it is you read of in your History books, who won the battles of Ramilies and Malplaquet, Oudenarde and Blenheim, fighting against the French; and his Duchess Sarah was famous for her beauty, and was the friend of Queen Anne. [Illustration: _Reynolds._ THE FORTUNE-TELLER.] These children then lived, as I have said, at this great Palace, and were dressed in red velvet and feathers, and taught to dance the minuet and gavotte. There were no trains in their day, and no telegrams or motor-cars. They travelled by the stage-coach if they came up to London, and life was in many ways rougher and cruder then than it is now.