Duke and Pamela were lying much as they had
been the evening before. It seemed a pity to wake them, but it had to be
done. Diana stooped down and gently shook Duke's arm.
"Master," she said,--"master and missy, you must wake up."
Duke opened his sleepy eyes and stared before him; Pamela, more quickly
awakened, started up, crying:
"What is it, Diana? It isn't that naughty man come for us?"
"No, no," said the gipsy, glad to see that Pamela had her wits about
her. "It is that Tim is ready to run away with you, as you've so often
planned. And you must get up and dress as quick as you can before Mick
or any one is awake, for the man will be coming this morning, and I must
have you ever so far away before then."
Her words completely aroused both children. In an instant they were on
their feet, nervously eager to be dressed and off. There was no question
of baths _this_ morning, but Diana washed their faces and hands well,
and smoothed their tangled hair.
"I must make them as tidy as I can," she said to herself with a sob in
her throat.
Duke saw with satisfaction that his nankin suit--which Diana had
persuaded him not to wear the day before, having lent him a pair of
trowsers of Tim's, which she had washed on purpose, and in which,
doubled up nearly to his waist, he looked very funny--was quite clean;
and Pamela, to her still greater surprise, found herself attired in a
tidy little skirt and jacket of dark blue stuff, with a little hood of
the same for her head.
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