matter, and no very difficult one either. The cruel women were asleep;
the awful Thing that had been Flossy would never speak again; and no one
else in Minerva Court cared enough for them to pursue them very far or
very long.

"And so," thought Timothy swiftly, "I will get things ready, take Gay,
and steal softly out of the back door, and run away to the 'truly'
country, where none of these bad people ever can find us, and where I
can get a mother for Gay; somebody to 'dopt her and love her till I
grow up a man and take her to live with me."

The moment this thought darted into Timothy's mind, it began to shape
itself in definite action.

Gabrielle, or Lady Gay, as Flossy called her, in honor of her favorite
stage heroine, had been tumbled into her crib half dressed the night
before. The only vehicle kept for her use in the family stables was a
clothes-basket, mounted on four wooden wheels and cushioned with a dingy
shawl. A yard of clothes-line was tied on to one end, and in this humble
conveyance the Princess would have to be transported from the Ogre's
castle; for she was scarcely old enough to accompany the Prince on foot,
even if he had dared to risk detection by waking her: so the
clothes-basket must be her chariot, and Timothy her charioteer, as on
many a less fateful expedition.

After he had changed his ragged night-gown for a shabby suit of clothes,
he took Gay's one clean apron out of a rickety bureau drawer ("for I can
never find a mother for her if she's too dirty," he thought), her Sunday
hat from the same receptacle, and last of all a comb, and a faded
Japanese parasol that stood in a corner. These he deposited under the