morrow, she was so anxious to see for herself this fairyland.

At last, midnight striking, reminded Mother Etienne that it was
time for sleep. Then they all went to bed, each head full of the
wonders of tomorrow's performance.




CHAPTER VIII


MOTHER ETIENNE'S DREAM


Mother Etienne was very restless again that night, haunted, not by
a dreadful nightmare as before, but by a troublesome dream.
Everything she had just seen at Sir Booum's appeared before her,
the tiniest incidents, the least important details.

All the explanations, concerning the creatures in the menagerie
given her by the trainer, came back to her, like an object lesson
in a curious dream.

The principal person in it was Yollande. Yollande as Barnum,
Yollande as trainer, Yollande holding in one hairy wing a stout
whip, in the other the pitchfork as a protection against claws and
teeth.

"You see here," said Yollande in a loud voice, "you see here the