And there was Mrs. Dismal and her daughter, Gloomy, wearing their beautiful shawls, and Mrs. Valiant with her face as bright as the morning itself. Mercy sat on one side of Mrs. Dismal and Grace and Glory sat beside her cousin. Joy and Peace were present too. Other members of the two households joined the party also for the domestic creatures were there in full force. The white and black cat came walking sedately across from the cottage next door and sat beside the yellow one, both ostentatiously washing their faces in anticipation and keeping a close watch on the table. The brown hen, loudly clucking, hurried there with her brood, all ready to receive the crumbs, and the ducklings left the stream and came waddling up the path. One or two of the neighboring dogs strolled nonchalantly into the garden as though they had just looked in by chance. Everyone at the party was in the best of spirits. To Mrs. Dismal and Gloomy it was as strange as though they had suddenly been transported into a new world.

How they all talked!—sharing the news with one another and making the two guests go over the story again and again of what had happened when the Shepherd went into the cottage. Most of all they talked with happy faces and happy voices about the Shepherd himself.

When they were well on towards emptying the big teapot for the third time, they were joined by a neighbor, Mrs. Gossip, who was bursting with news. She said that she had just looked in to tell them that Self-Pity (“your cousin, you know, Much-Afraid!”) had been taken dangerously ill, and his wife, Helpless, was at her wit’s end, not knowing what to do. The doctor, when he came, had said it was a serious case of double pneumonia and that the patient must be kept absolutely quiet, with a nurse in attendance day and night.

“And you all know how utterly unpractical and useless poor Helpless is in an emergency,” Mrs. Gossip wound up, adding with dolorous satisfaction: “It seems that Self-Pity himself is so terrified that he is going to die that they can’t keep him quiet. I am afraid they must be having a dreadful time. And that youngest child of theirs, little Doldrums, is tumbling about all over the place with no one to look after him, getting in everybody’s way and nearly falling into the fire and likely to burn or scald himself to death—a little terror if ever there was one! No one can do anything with him. No, thank you, Mrs. Valiant, one cup of tea is quite enough. It was most refreshing. I really must be going; thank you very much indeed.”