“It is the man with the silver rings!” she exclaimed—“the rich gipsy in the wood! Oh, it is all my fault! If it had not been for me he would never have seen Alfonso.” And that was the most cruel idea of all. That night, when everyone was asleep, she got up and packed her bundle. She was afraid to say good-bye to her friends for fear she should be prevented from going to seek her lost comrade, and she had made up her mind to leave everything and travel this difficult world till she should meet him again. She was certain the wicked-looking gipsy in the wood had stolen him before the blue van left its last camping-ground, and she resolved to go back to the place where they had all been so happy, to see whether, by some contrivance, she might steal him from the tents. Perhaps he was miserable himself, poor Alfonso! She was broken-hearted as she crept out of the van. She could make out the heavy figure of the Cochin-Chinaman roosting with his wife upon a shaft. He got down and came running to her, striding and sprawling with his great awkward legs. “Don’t say a word—I am going to find Alfonso,” began Maggie. “If anyone hears me I may be stopped, and then I shall die of despair. Hush! hush! Don’t open your beak to screech like that, or they’ll all come out.” “You care more for Alfonso than for me,” wailed the cock, as loudly as he dared. “You think nothing of bidding good-bye to me!” She could not answer, for she knew it was true. She loved Alfonso best. “But we shall both come back together, Alfonso and I,” she replied. “I can leave you because I know you are quite happy.” “I’m glad you think so,” replied he. “Never you marry if you want peace. What that speckled baggage has made me endure is beyond all telling!” “And I thought you were so comfortably married!” exclaimed Maggie. “Oh, what I have gone through!” he went on—“what I have endured! She is so greedy that I never get a bite. She is so violent that I have had to call in help or not keep a feather on my body. And she has told all the others that I left the farm we came from because I was afraid of the bantam cock. She has no heart and no manners—only claws and a tongue!” “Then come with me,” said Maggie. “We shall be very poor, and perhaps starve, but we shan’t be lonely.” “Family life is dreadful,” said the Cochin-Chinaman. “I’ll come.”