Little Miles was dreaming on a green bank, on the top of which he and Humphrey were seated, making daisy-chains, when suddenly the midges began to fly in his face in a most disagreeable manner. Buzz, buzz, they came up against his cheeks like hard lumps, and he couldn't drive them away. He turned to Humphrey for assistance, and such a strong gust of wind blew upon one side of his head and face that he fell over on his side and began to slip down the hill. He clutched hold of his brother to save himself, and woke—to find neither bank nor daisies but that Humphrey was dragging him out of bed.

"At last!" whispered Humphrey. "I thought you never were going to wake. I've tried everything! I've thrown bits of biscuit in your face, I've blown into your ear, I've shaken you till I was tired; I couldn't speak, you know, for fear of waking Virginie. Be very quiet, for she's moved once or twice."

"But what do you want, Humphie?" asked Miles, rubbing his eyes. "Why do you get out of bed in the middle of the night?"

"Middle of the night!" echoed Humphrey, "why it's broad daylight! Look at the hole in the shutter, how sunny it is out of doors. I've been lying awake ever since the cock crew, watching the light get brighter and brighter, and——"

But before he had concluded his sentence his weary little brother had settled himself again on his pillow.

"Miles! Miles!" whispered Humphrey in despair, stooping over him.

"Good night, Humphie," said Miles, sleepily.

"Why, you're going to sleep again," said Humphrey in his ear.

"No, I'm not," said the child, dreamily.

"Yes, you are!" exclaimed Humphrey, forgetting, in his excitement, that he was speaking out loud.

"No, I'm not," repeated Miles, trying to seem very wide-awake: but the fringed eyelids drooped over the heavy eyes, and he tried to keep them open in vain.

An ominous stir from the big bed prevented Humphrey from answering, and he watched Virginie nervously, as she rolled over from one side to the other.

Miles took advantage of the pause and fell asleep again directly.

"Wake up! wake up!" said Humphrey, returning to the charge.

Miles sat up in bed.

"What is the matter, Humphie?"

"Nothing's the matter, but don't you remember our delicious plan to get up early and pick mushrooms?"

Miles remembered now, but the plan did not seem so delicious now, somehow, as it had done the day before.

"Get up now, Humphie?" he said dejectedly.

"Yes," answered his energetic brother, "you won't mind it when we're once out in the fields. I'm going to dress you before I dress myself, so be quick and jump up. You'll feel all right when you're out of bed."

Little Miles looked half inclined to cry.

"I'm so sleepy," he said wistfully.

"You'll be better soon," said Humphrey, pulling off the bed-clothes.

"Let's go to-morrow instead, Humphie." Humphrey had turned round to get Miles's boots and stockings, and did not hear this last proposal. When he came back to the bed-side, to his horror, Miles had lain down again.

"What is to be done?" he exclaimed in despair. A sudden thought struck him, and he went quickly off to the other end of the room.

Miles was not quite asleep, and attracted by a clatter, he raised himself to see what his brother was about.

"What are you going to do, Humphie?" he exclaimed, as he saw Humphrey coming slowly across the room with a great jug of water in his arms.

"Why you see," said Humphrey in a loud whisper, and rather out of breath, for he was oppressed by the weight of the water jug, "the best way to wake people is to pour a jug of cold water suddenly on their face, and so——"

"Oh! I'm quite awake now, Humphie; indeed," interrupted Miles, getting out of bed in a great hurry, "you needn't, really. Look at my eyes." And in great trepidation the child opened his large blue eyes to their fullest extent.

Humphrey was satisfied, and put the jug down. Miles would have been happier to see it safely replaced on the distant wash-hand stand, and offered to help to carry it back, if his brother found it too heavy.

He was not much reassured by Humphrey's answer:

"It'll do very well there; and, besides, it's better to have it near, in case you get sleepy again."

The toilette now began in earnest: Humphrey gave Miles his stockings to put on while he proceeded to dress himself, and was all ready but his jacket, when turning round he found Miles in great perplexity, with his toe unaccountably fixed in the place where his heel ought to be.

"I can't get it out, Humphie!"

"I must do it, I suppose," said the elder boy; and he seized the leg, nearly upsetting Miles as he did so, and proceeded to put on the stocking wrong side out.

"It doesn't matter the least," he assured Miles, who was rather discomfited at the bits of thread, and general unfinished appearance of his leg. But what did matter was, that the walking-boots had not, of course, come up from being cleaned.

"Never mind," said Humphrey; "shoes will do."

On came the delicate child's thin in-door shoes, without any reference to the heavy dew and long grass attendant upon mushroom hunting. Miles was then divested of his night-gown, and his under-clothes put on.

All went on smoothly till the first tying of strings, and here Humphrey was completely at fault. It was no use.

"Don't you think you could hold all your things together?" he suggested; "and then I'll pop on your blouse quick, and make the band very tight, to keep it all steady?"

Miles agreed to this plan, as he did to all others, more especially as he found the alternative was the insertion of a huge pin, with which Humphrey offered to "make it all comfortable!"

"I don't know how it is," said little Miles, shaking himself about, "but I don't feel as warm as usual."

"Don't shake like that, Miles," exclaimed Humphrey; "it'll all come down, you know. Get your hat, and let's come along quietly."

"Why! I have had no bath!" said Miles, stopping short.

"No more have I," echoed Humphrey, "I quite forgot! And what's this?" he added, picking up a small flannel shirt.

"Why, it's mine," said Miles.

"So it is," rejoined Humphrey, "of course; that's why you felt cold. Well, we can't wait now. Come along: be very quiet." And the two boys stepped quietly out of the room, and of course left the door wide open behind them.

It was not much more than half-past five by the clock in the hall, and doors and windows were as yet all barred. The light came in fitfully through any chinks or holes it could find, and gave a generally mysterious aspect to the hall and staircase. Little Miles glanced rather timidly round, and drew nearer to his brother, as they passed through the library and billiard-room, as if the unwonted appearance of the familiar apartments threw something of the supernatural round about them.

Any one who has risen at an unusual hour, and come into the sitting-rooms before the household is stirring, will understand something of the child's feeling. The chairs and tables are undergoing a phase which to them is familiar, but which is quite strange to us.

We only know them as in connection with ourselves, and do not dream that they have an existence in which we are not, with which we have nothing to do. We know them in the busy day and in the lighted room at night; but with the grey dawn creeping in upon them they are quite strangers, and even mysterious.

Hans Christian Andersen recognized and expressed this feeling when he laid the scene of one of his fairy tales in a drawing-room at dead of night, and endowed the inanimate objects in the room with the attributes of human beings.

The two little brothers found their way out by the conservatory, and went to the tool-house to fetch some baskets, before setting out for the mushroom fields.

The dew was heavy on flowers and grass and when they got into the meadow, their feet, and legs got very wet.

At sight of the first batch of mushrooms in the distance, Humphrey got wild, and with a scream of joy he bounded towards it. From one batch to another he sped, picking as fast as he could, and was soon out of sight.

Humphrey had it all to himself, for Miles could not keep up, and he was soon left far behind with his basket. He was a little disconcerted at first, when he saw Humphrey gradually getting further and further away; but having satisfied himself by a hasty glance round the field, that there were no bulls near, he became reconciled to his solitude, and began to fill his basket, humming a little tune to himself as he did so.

He was rather surprised, as he went along, to see how many mushrooms Humphrey had left untouched. They were such lovely ones too! all red and yellow outside, and white inside, and so huge!

He filled his basket with them in great triumph, and then sat down under a tree to wait for Humphrey's return.

The early morning air was rather fresh, and he began to feel a little cold without his flannel shirt. His feet, too, were very wet, and he got up to take a little run to warm himself. He caught sight of Humphrey coming towards him, and ran to meet him.

"Oh, Humphie! I've got such a lot, and such beauties! Come and see them under the tree."

"Look here!" said Humphrey, holding up his basket; "did you ever see such a quantity?"

Miles looked a little nervously at the white exteriors of Humphrey's mushrooms.

"Mine are quite different, Humphie."

"You haven't been picking fungus, I hope?" exclaimed Humphrey, stopping short.

"Oh, no!" said Miles, quickly—"at least I don't think I have," he added doubtfully, "But what is fungus, Humphie?"

"Toadstools," answered Humphrey, "horrid big yellow toads; there are lots of them about in the fields. Where are they, Miles? Show them to me, quick!"

"They're under the trees," said Miles; and both boys set off running.

"Toads, every one!" proclaimed Humphrey, emptying the basket on the ground. "Not one mushroom in the lot. Why, Miles! do you know they're poison?"

Miles stood aghast—the awe of the announcement completely softening the disappointment.

"It's lucky I saw them before they were cooked," continued Humphrey, in a tone of great solemnity; "fancy, if all the wild men had been poisoned! It would have been your fault."

"Oh, Humphie!" said little Miles, in terror, "let's throw them away."

"We'll smash them," said Humphrey; "and that'll do as well."

So they made a heap of the fungus, and stamped upon them till their shoes and stockings were covered with the nasty compound.

"What will Virginie say?" laughed Humphrey, as he looked at his legs.

"What will she say?" echoed Miles, delighted. Suddenly he stopped short. "Humphie! I never said my prayers!"

"Good gracious! No more have I."

"What shall we do? We shall have to go home. It wouldn't be right, I suppose, to say them out of doors?"

"No harm at all," said Humphrey; "let's say them under the tree."

And, suiting the action to the word, with his usual promptitude, Humphrey knelt down; but he was up again directly.

"I was going to tell you, Miles, that we'd better take off our hats while we say them; every one does when they go to church; which, of course, you don't know, as you're too young to go there."

Miles received the information with great respect, and began to disentangle his elastic from his hair.

"Not yet!" exclaimed Humphrey; "wait till we kneel down; I'll tell you when."

Miles kept his eyes fixed upon Humphrey, with his hand on the brim of his hat, ready to take it off at the expected signal.

"Now!" said Humphrey. Down knelt the two little brothers on the grass, baring their curly heads as they did so.

Little Miles was accustomed to repeat his prayer after Virginie, and did not know it by heart; and he was in great perplexity till Humphrey had finished, not knowing whether it would be best to remain kneeling or not.

In about five minutes Humphrey jumped up and put on his hat. Miles rose too, and confided his troubles. Humphrey instantly gave the subject his earnest attention.

"It would never do for you to say my prayer after me," he said, reflectively; "you're too young."

"Too young," repeated Miles, meekly.

"And I've forgotten my baby prayer, of course," continued Humphrey; "it's so very very long since I used to say it—— I'll tell you what, Miles, you might say your grace!"

"My grace?" said Miles, rather scared; "why, that isn't prayers, is it, Humphie?"

"Oh, yes, it is," answered Humphrey; "in your little book of 'Prayers for Children,' your grace has got at the top of it, 'A prayer after meat.' Meat, you know, means breakfast, dinner, and tea; even if you only have bread and butter, or sop."

"Does it?" exclaimed Miles. "I thought meat was only beef and mutton—hardly chicken!"

"Ah! but it does, though," said Humphrey, in a superior tone; "you don't know, Miles. There's lots of things you don't know yet. Why you thought grace wasn't prayers, and yet it is. Now say this after me: 'For what I have received, may the Lord make me truly thankful.'"

"Why! that's your grace, Humphie, not mine! Mine is only, 'Thank God for my good breakfast.'"

"That will do," said Humphrey.

"But, Humphie! I've not had my breakfast! How can I say it?"

"To be sure," said Humphrey, reflectively, "that makes it very awkward. You've not even had a bit of bread. If you'd only had a biscuit, it would have done—it's very unlucky."

He remained for some minutes in an attitude of deep thought.

"I know!" he exclaimed suddenly; "I always say a grace before my meals, and of course you'll have some breakfast presently, so you can say my grace after me. It's very difficult for you, of course; but still, if I say it very slowly, you can manage to do it. Now listen very attentively: 'For what I am going to receive, may the Lord make me truly thankful.'"

Miles knelt down and repeated the little prayer, and then the two little brothers sat down on the grass, and counted their mushrooms, to see how' many there would be for the wild men apiece.

Meanwhile Virginie, awakened by the rush of cold air caused by the open door, sat up in bed and looked about her.

The two little nightgowns on the floor and the jug of water in the middle of the room, first attracted her attention; but the room being partially dark, she did not perceive that the children had disappeared. She got up and opened the shutters, and then stood staring at the empty beds, the sheets and blankets scattered in all directions. And then she advanced hurriedly to Humphrey's bed, to see if the children were hidden beneath it. She looked also under the wardrobe, behind the curtains, in the toy cupboard. But her astonishment changed to alarm when she found their clothes were missing, and she ran into the day-nursery, and hung over the stairs shouting, "M. Humphrey! M. Miles!"

Not being dressed, she could not go down, so she rang the bell violently, and began to put on her things as quickly as she could.

The housemaid who answered the bell could give no account of the young gentlemen, but volunteered to search the house for them.

While she was absent Virginie's eyes fell on Miles's flannel shirt, and she wrung her hands in despair.

"They must have gone out," said the housemaid, returning; "the conservatory door is wide open, and so is the outer door."

"Impossible!" stuttered Virginie, in her broken English; "their walking boots have not mounted; they have not but the thin shoes of the house!"

"They must be out," repeated the housemaid, "for I've hunted every corner. Have they taken their hats?"

Virginie strode across the room, and opened a drawer.

"Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, when she saw it was empty.

"But, I say," she continued, gesticulating violently with both hands, "that M. Miles will catch the cold, the cough, the croup. See there, Jeanne! he has not the flannel shirt he carries always. His chest will inflame. He will die!"

She began to put on her bonnet.

"There they are!" exclaimed Jane, who had gone to the window. "Look there! out in that field!"

"In the fields? sitting on the wet grass!" said Virginie in horror, as she distinguished the two little figures in the distance, seated under a tree. "Entrez, entrez, À l'instant!" she screamed to the children, though they were much too far off to hear. She seized her shawl and ran down-stairs.

The little boys were coming homewards when she got into the garden, and she hurried on to meet them. Miles had hold of his brother's hand, and was walking rather wearily; but Humphrey, with his head still full of the success of his morning sport, disregarded alike Miles's languor and Virginie's infuriated appearance.

"Regardez!" he shouted in triumph, holding up his basket of mushrooms.

At the sight of Miles's wet boots and flushed cheeks, Virginie forgot all the reproaches she had prepared for Humphrey and merely with lofty disdain confiscating his mushrooms, she took Miles up in her arms and carried him home.

Humphrey trotted along by her side, entreating to have his basket restored, but she took no notice of him.

She carried Miles straight up into the nursery, and began to undress him. He presented a curious appearance when his blouse was taken off—strings all knotted together, buttons forced into the wrong holes, and hooks clinging to outlets that were never intended for them.

Miles yawned all the time, and sneezed once or twice, each time provoking from Virginie an exclamation, half of alarm and half of anger.

"You needn't scold Miles," called out Humphrey, who was being washed in the distance by the nursery-maid; "he didn't want to come—it was all me."

When they were dressed again, the two little culprits were seated to their breakfast, but forbidden to hold any communication with each other except in French.

It was rather a slow ending to so pleasant a beginning, especially as after breakfast Miles was so tired that he had to lie down, and Humphrey was hardly allowed to move for fear of disturbing him.

Virginie would not let them out of her sight for the rest of the day, and they took a dull walk in the afternoon, one on each side of her.

Towards evening, Miles gave forth an ominous cough, and was decidedly croupy at night.

Virginie's nerves always deserted her when the delicate boy was ill in his father's absence, and towards the middle of the next day she could stand it no longer, and sent off for the doctor.

Humphrey was very remorseful when Virginie informed him it was his fault that Miles was unwell, and remained in a state of great depression for about three minutes. But the sight of the doctor's gig coming up the avenue sent it all out of his head, and he dashed down-stairs, three steps at a time, to receive him at the hall door.

"Well, Doctor," he called out; "how are you? Why, you've got new harness to your horse! How jolly and clean it looks."

"New harness?—yes," said the doctor, dismounting; "but tell me what's the matter with your brother?"

"Oh, it was the mushrooms," said Humphrey, vaguely, and with his eyes running over the new reins and straps. "I wonder how long they'll look so fresh and clean?"

"Mushrooms!" exclaimed the doctor; "you don't mean to say they let that delicate child eat mushrooms? Has he got an attack of indigestion?"

"Oh, no," said Humphrey, springing down the steps and patting the horse; "a pain in his chest, I think. How glossy his coat is to-day, isn't it?"

"Same thing—same thing," said the doctor; "and I'm sure I don't wonder, if they let him eat mushrooms."

Humphrey burst out laughing, having for the first time given his attention to what the doctor was saying.

"Why, they were raw!" he said.

"Raw mushrooms!" exclaimed the doctor, "who could have allowed him to eat them?"

"But he didn't eat any," said Humphrey, convulsed. And he rolled about so, as he laughed at the doctor's mistake, that he knocked up against the horse, who immediately plunged.

"Take care, my dear child," said the doctor, pulling him away; "you mustn't frighten black Bob—he won't stand it. But, tell me," he continued, drawing the boy into the hall, "Why did you say the mushrooms had given him a pain in his chest?"

"It was the flannel shirt——" began Humphrey; but at the sound of hoofs on the gravel outside, he broke off suddenly: "Oh there's black Bob plunging again; I must go and see—let me go, please." He broke from the doctor's grasp, and ran back to the door, calling out as he did so: "It might have been the flannel shirt, perhaps, if it wasn't the shoes; but we were in such a hurry."

Despairing of getting any sense out of him, the doctor let him go, and pursued his way up-stairs, where he had full details from Virginie.

He did not think Miles very bad, but ordered him to be kept in two rooms for the rest of the week.

I need hardly say that when he came down again Humphrey had persuaded the groom to let him get into the gig, and there he was in the broiling sun without his hat, driving black Bob round and round the approach.