voice. "Let us run away, for fear he should make us enlist in his
company!"

"You are mistaken again, my little friend," replied the stranger, very
composedly. "This is not Mr. Toil, the schoolmaster, but a brother of
his, who has served in the army all his life. People say he's a terribly
severe fellow; but you and I need not he afraid of him."

"Well, well," said little Daffydowndilly, "but, if you please, sir, I
don't want to see the soldiers any more."

So the child and the stranger resumed their journey; and, by and by, they
came to a house by the roadside, where a number of people were making
merry. Young men and rosy-checked girls, with smiles on their faces,
were dancing to the sound of a fiddle. It was the pleasantest sight that
Daffydowndilly had yet met with, and it comforted him for all his
disappointments.

"O, let us stop here," cried he to his companion; "for Mr. Toil will never
dare to show his face where there is a fiddler, and where people are
dancing and making merry. We shall be quite safe here!"

But these last words died away upon Daffydowndilly's tongue; for,
happening to cast his eyes on the fiddler, whom should be behold again,
but the likeness of Mr. Toil, holding a fiddle-bow instead of a birch
rod, and flourishing it with as much ease and dexterity as if he had been
a fiddler all his life! He had somewhat the air of a Frenchman, but
still looked exactly like the old schoolmaster; and Daffydowndilly even
fancied that he nodded and winked at him, and made signs for him to join
in the dance.