'Hullo! There _is_ the giant!' exclaimed Babs, immediately afterwards, as Peter came striding across the lawn to interrupt the conversation on the doorstep. 'He must be the giant,' she continued, watching the trio below her with great interest, 'because the Doctor is looking so angry and Jill has such a funny, frightened look on her face. Besides, Peter looks like a giant; he's so big and dangerous looking. I wonder if the Doctor will kill the giant _now_, or--oh, dear! they've both come indoors and left the giant outside. I don't think I ever heard of the prince and princess running _away_ from the giant before. I'm sure that's wrong. How Peter is grinning--just like a horrid old giant. _Coo-ey_, Peter!'
The prince and princess came into the room, talking busily.
'If you don't come to-morrow,' Dr. Hurst was saying, 'I am afraid it will have to be put off indefinitely, as I am going away for ten days. When I come back, you will have gone to Crofts, you see.'
Barbara seized the first opportunity to interrupt them. 'What's going to happen to-morrow, Dr. Hurst?' she demanded. 'Are you going to carry off the princess at last?'
'I--I don't think so,' said Dr. Hurst, sitting down beside her.
'Well,' said Dr. Hurst, smiling, 'I don't know whether the princess is ready to be carried off. Are you so anxious to get rid of her?'
Both he and Jill were used by this time to her fancy for weaving the people she liked best into a fairy tale. But Jill was not smiling so much as usual this morning.
'I don't want to be carried off by anybody, thank you, Babs,' she said demurely.
'Oh, that doesn't make any difference,' Babs assured her. 'If you're a princess, you just have to be carried off whether you like it or not.'
'Then I'll be a new kind of princess, and refuse to have anything to do with the prince when he comes. Shall I, Babs?' suggested Jill, lightly.
Barbara looked at her doubtfully. Jill's idea was not like anything she had ever read in a fairy tale, and she did not think much of it.
'You see, you're _not_ a new kind of princess,' she answered simply. And the Doctor looked amused; but Jill hurried away to the other end of the room and began talking about temperatures.
The giant must have been very busy all that day, for he did not come near the invalid's room till just before supper. Kit came, and so did the other boys, but they only said vaguely that Peter was in the barn; and when he ran in at last to say good-night to her, she knew it was no use trying to find out what his plans were for locking up the princess. For Peter did not know that he was a giant, and he did not know that Jill was a princess; and it was better to go on with the story in her own way than to provoke Peter's great laugh by telling him about it. So she went to sleep and dreamed of the dear old magician, who had been away from her kingdom for four whole months, and was going to be away for two months more; and in her dream he came back and rescued the princess himself, and turned the beast into a prince for her. But that was only a dream, and in the morning the end of the story seemed further off than ever.