Chapter I: SUPPOSE that most boys and girls who go to school and study geography (3)

"The Willetts," as the neighbors called them, using the collective phrase always, were twins, and just eighteen years old. Bearing to each other even a stronger personal likeness than twins customarily possess, they were in other points curiously unlike. Delia was soft and clinging, Hetty vigorous and self-reliant. Delia loved to be guided, Hetty to guide; the former had few independent views and opinions, the latter was brimful of ideas and fancies, plans and purposes; some crude, some foolish, but all her own. Yet, oddly enough, it was Delia, very often, who gave the casting vote in their decisions, for Hetty's love for her slender twin was a sentiment so deep and intense that she often yielded against her own better sense and judgment, simply for the pleasure of yielding to what Delia wished. Delia in return adored her sister, waited on her, petted, consoled, "exactly as if she were Hetty's wife," Aunt Polly said, "and the worst was they suited each other so well that no one else would ever suit either of them, and they were bound to die old maids in consequence!"

But eighteen can laugh at such auguries, and there was no thought or question of marriage in the minds of the sisters as they crouched that afternoon close together on the old window-seat.

A very different question absorbed them, and a perplexing one; how they were to live, namely, and to keep together while doing so, which meant pretty much the same thing to them both. Grandmother's death had left them with so very, very little. Her annuity died with her. There was the old house, the plain, worn furniture to which they had been accustomed all their lives, and about a hundred dollars a year! What could they do with that?

"If one of us only happened to be clever," sighed Delia. "If I could paint pictures, or you had a talent for writing, how easy it would be!"

"I don't know as to that," responded Hetty. "Seems to me I've heard of people who did those things, and yet didn't find it so mighty easy to get along. Somebody's got to buy the pictures after they're painted, you know, and read the books, and pay for them." She spoke in an absent tone, and her brow was knitted into the little frown which Delia knew betokened that her twin was puzzling hard over something.

"Don't scowl, it'll spoil your forehead," she said, smoothing out the objectionable frown with her fingers.

"Was I scowling? Well, never mind. I'm trying to think, Dely. You can't paint and I can't write. The question is, What can we do?"

"That _is_ a question," said a voice at the door. It was Aunt Polly's voice. She managed on most days to drop in and "give a look to them, the lonely little creeturs," as she would have expressed it.

"You're consultin', I see," she said, taking in the situation at a glance: the dismal room, the depressive and tearful cheeks of the two girls, the lack of comfort and cheer. She twitched open the stove door as she passed, threw in a stick of wood, twirled the damper, and gave a brisk, rattling shake to the ashes,--all with a turn of her hand as it were,--attentions to which the stove presently responded with a brisk roar. "Well, it's time you did. I was planning to have a talk with you before long, for you ought to settle to something. Pull the blind down, Dely, and, Hetty, you light the lamp, and come to the fire, both of you, and let's see what we can make of it. It's a tangled skein enough, I don't deny it; but most skeins are that, and there's always a right end somewhere, if the Lord'll give us sense enough to get hold of it and keep on pulling out and winding up."

Presently the girls were seated close to Aunt Polly's rocking-chair. The room looked more cheerful now with the lamplight and the yellow glow from the stove, and both were conscious of a sense of hopefulness.

"Now--what _can_ you do?" demanded Aunt Polly, whirling round in her chair so as to face them.

"We hadn't got so far as that when you came in," replied Hetty; "I suppose we must do what other people do in the same circumstances."

"What's that?"

"Teach something, or sew, I suppose."

"Sewing's slow starvation, in my opinion, unless you've got a machine, which you haven't, and not much better then. What do you know that you can teach?"

"Not much," replied Hetty, humbly, while Delia added hesitatingly, "We could teach children their letters, perhaps."

"I presume you could," responded Aunt Polly, dryly. "But, though you mayn't know it, perhaps, there are about fifty women in this town can do the same, and who mean to do it, what's more. And most of 'em have got the start of you in one way or another, so what's your chance worth? No, girls, sewing and teaching are played out. They are good things in their way, but every woman who's got her living to earn thinks of them the very first thing and of nothing else, and the market is always overstocked. My advice to you is, to _think up something you can do better than other people_--that's what gives folks a real chance! Now, what is there?"

"There isn't anything I can do better than other people," cried the dismayed Delia. "Nor Hetty either--except make gingerbread," she added, with a faint little laugh. "Hetty beats everybody at that, grandmother always said."

"Very well; make gingerbread then. That's your thing to do," said Aunt Polly.

Hetty looked at her with incredulous eyes.

"You're not in earnest, are you?" she said.

"I am. In dead earnest."

"But, Aunt Polly, _gingerbread_! Such a little thing as that! Who ever heard of a girl's doing such a thing?"

"All the better if they never did. A new trade has a double chance. As for the 'little,' great things often come from small beginnings. Fortunes have been made out of gingerbread before now, I'll be bound, or if not that, out of something no bigger. No, Hetty, depend upon it, if your gingerbread is _best_, folks will want it. And if your teaching or sewing is only second best, they won't. It's the law of human nature, and a very good law, too, though it cuts the wrong way sometimes, like all laws."

"Aunt Polly, you're a genius!" cried Hetty, warmed into sudden glow by this vigorous common sense. "I _can_ make good gingerbread, and it's just as you say, neither of us know enough to teach well, and we are both poor hands at sewing, and we should have a much better chance if we tried to do what we can and not what we can't. Why shouldn't I make gingerbread? Dely'd help me, and if folks liked our things and bought them, we could live and keep together. We could make a kind of shop of this room, couldn't we? What do you think?"

"'Tisn't a bad place for such a trade," said Aunt Polly, slowly, measuring the room with her eyes. "Being on a corner is an advantage, you see; and there's that double winder on the street gives a first-rate chance to show what you've got to sell. I never did see no use in that winder before. My father, he had it cut for a kind of a whim like, and we all thought it was notional in him; but, as they say, keep a thing long enough and a use'll turn up. It's a sort of a gain for you, too, having the house so old-fashioned. Folks has a hankering for such things, nowadays--the Lord knows why. I hear 'em going on about it when I'm out tailorin', calling ugly things 'quaint,' and lovely, because they're old. Hetty,"--with sudden inspiration,--"here's an idea for you, be 'quaint'! Don't try for a shop, keep the room a room, and make it as old-fashioned-looking as you can, and I'll bet a cookie that your gingerbread'll be twice as popular with one set of folks, and if it's first-rate gingerbread, the other set who don't care for old things will like it just as well."

What a bracing thing is a word in season! Aunt Polly's little seed of suggestion grew and spread like Jack's fabled bean-stalk.

"Your light biscuits always turn out well," said Delia.

"And my snaps. Grandmother liked them so much. And you're a good hand at loaf bread, you know. Aunt Polly--I seem to smell a fortune in the air. We will begin at once, just as soon as I can get a half-barrel of flour and put an advertisement in the paper."

Hetty had a ready wit, and Aunt Polly's hint as to "quaintness" was not lost upon her. The advertisement when it appeared the next day but one ran thus:--

"After Monday next, the Old-Time Bakery, corner of Farewell and Martin Streets, will be prepared to furnish, to order, fresh bread, buns, biscuits, and grandmother's gingerbread, all home-made."

People smiled over the little notice, but the odd wording stuck in their memories as odd things will, and more than one person went out of his way during the next week to take a look into the wide, low window, within which, on a broad, napkin-covered shelf, stood rows of biscuits, light and white, buns, each glazed with shining umber-brown, and loaves of gingerbread whose complexion and smell were enough to vouch for their excellence. Acting on Aunt Polly's suggestion, Hetty had set forth her wares on plates of the oldest and oddest pattern which could be found in grandmother's closet. A queer, tall pitcher flanked them on either side, and round the window-frame she had twined the long, luxuriant shoots of a potted ivy. Altogether the effect was pretty, and no one need be told that the pitchers had for years been consecrated to the reception of yeast and corks, or that the plates had long since been relegated to kitchen use as too shabby for better occasions.

"Hain't ye no white chany?" inquired their first customer, an old woman, as she slowly counted out the pennies for half a dozen biscuit. "It would kind of set your cakes off."

"We used what we had," replied Hetty, diplomatically. "But I hope your biscuits'll taste just as good as if they came off a white plate."

This old woman, two others, and a little boy were the only customers that first day.

"'Tisn't a bit a good beginning," declared Delia, pouring the money received out of an old-fashioned china tea-caddy which Hetty had unearthed in an up-stairs closet and brought down to serve as a till. "Two dozen biscuits, that's twenty-four cents, a loaf of gingerbread, and about half the buns. That's fifty-three cents in all. What did you say the materials cost?"

"About seventy cents. But then we have our supper and breakfast out of them, and nearly half the stock to sell at a reduced rate to-morrow. We shan't lose anything, I reckon, but we shan't gain much either."

"Rome wasn't built all in a minute. You'll do yet," remarked Aunt Polly, who had dropped in to hear the result of the first day's sales.

But two days--three--a week, went by, and still trade did not materially improve, and it took all Aunt Polly's wise saws and hopeful auguries to keep their spirits up. Each day showed the same record, no loss, but almost no gain. Toward the end of the second week matters mended. Mrs. Corliss, the wife of a wealthy manufacturer, having an errand in Farewell Street, happened to pass the little window, and her bric-a-brac-loving eyes were caught at once by its unusual appearance. She stopped, studied the whole arrangement from the ivy wreath to the old pitchers; a recollection of the droll little advertisement over which she had laughed a few days previously, came over her. "I declare, this is the very place," she said to herself; and opening the door she entered, precisely as Hetty came from the kitchen through the opposite door, a handkerchief tied over her shiny hair, a white apron with a little ruffled waist protecting her print gown, her cheeks flushed rosy pink with heat, and in her hands a tray full of crisp, delectably smelling ginger-snaps.

"A real study--like a Flemish picture," Mrs. Corliss said afterward. She fell in love at once with the quaint room, the pretty sisters, the old china, stayed twenty minutes nibbling ginger-snaps and looking about her, bought a dollar's worth of everything, "on trial," as she said, and swept out, leaving a wake of rose-colored hope in the air--and Delia and Hetty executing a wild waltz behind her back, for joy and gratulation.

"Luck has turned--I know, I feel it," declared Hetty.

Luck _had_ turned. Mrs. Corliss raved to everybody she knew about the room, the twin-sisters, and the excellence of the gingerbread. It became a fashion to go to Farewell Street for buns and biscuits. Hetty and Delia had to work early and late to fill their orders, but what was that "to sewing their fingers off for a bare living"? Hetty said; and toil was sweetened now by a gradually increasing profit. At the end of the first six months they had not only "lived and kept together," but had a little sum laid by, which, as Aunt Polly advised, was treated as "business capital," part of it being invested in the purchase of an awning for the window and an extra stove to increase their baking capacity. Very rarely were there any stale things left now to be sold next day at half-price, the regular orders and chance custom consuming all.

"We shall have to hire a boy to carry things round, I actually believe," declared Hetty. "Mrs. Malcomb and Mrs. Sayres both said that they would order our bread regularly if we could send it home."

"I've been expecting that would be the next step," remarked Aunt Polly, "and I guess I've got just the boy you want, in my eye. It's Widow McCullen's lad--Sandy, as they call him. He's a good little chap, and it'll be a real help to his mother to have him earning a trifle."

So Sandy McCullen was regularly engaged as "bread-boy," and business grew brisker still.

"Aunt Polly, we've got to another notch," said Hetty, at the end of the first year. "You don't happen to know of a girl, do you, who could help us in the baking? Delia and I can't keep up with the orders. She gets so tired every now and then that she can't sleep, and that worries me so that I lie awake, too."

"That'll never answer; no, I don't know of any girl, but there's a nice kind of an oldish woman, if she'll do, that I'd like to recommend. Yes--I mean myself," she went on, chuckling at Hetty's amazed look. "It's come to me more than once lately that it'd be sort of good and restful to make a change, and not go on tailorin' forever, all the rest of my days. I used to be a master hand at bread and pie-crust, too, when I was your age, and I've a little saved up which can go with the business if it's needed; and, if you girls say so, we'll just make a kind of family firm of the thing. How does it strike you?"

"Oh, Aunt Polly, the very thing, only it seems too good to be true. Do you really mean it? We did so hate the idea of a raw girl to whom we should have to teach everything, and who would spoil half she made for the first month, and I've fought it off as long as I could. Why, it will be like having grandmother come back, to have you living with us. There's the west room all ready. Dear me! How delightfully things seem to turn out for us always!"

"That wasn't your view always, it seems to me," rejoined Aunt Polly. "A year ago you was pretty down in the mouth, if I don't mistake. Gingerbread is good for something, you see."

"The Old-Time Bakery" still goes on in Farewell Street, but it has grown far beyond its original proportions. If you were to visit it to-day you would find a room double the size of the former, and which has been made by taking down a partition wall between the sitting-room and a spare bedroom and throwing them into one. There are two windows on the street now, one full of bread, biscuits, and buns, the other stored with Hetty's now famous gingerbread, and with delicious-looking pumpkin-pies and apple-tarts with old-fashioned flaky crust, which are Aunt Polly's specialty and have added greatly to the reputation of the establishment. Still it is not a shop. Hetty, with wary good taste, has scrupulously preserved the "quaint" look which first gave character to the little enterprise, and by judicious rummaging in neighbors' garrets has acquired sundry old-time chairs, bottles, jugs, and platters, which help in the effect. Everything is scrupulously clean and bright, as all things must be where Aunt Polly supervises; but the brightest things in the room are the faces of the twin sisters. They have tested and proved their powers; they know now what they can do, and they taste the happiness of success.

I tell their little story, in which is nothing remarkable or out of the way, for the sake of other girls, who, perhaps, are sitting to-day with folded hands and puzzling and wondering, just as Hetty and Delia did, over what they are to do and how to set about it. I do not mean at all that these girls should all make gingerbread--that indeed would be "overstocking the market," as Aunt Polly would say, but only that they should hearken to her word of wisdom, "find out what they can do _best_, and do that," whatever it is, secure that good work, and hearty striving will win some measure of success soon or late, even if its beginnings are small and insignificant as a gingerbread loaf or a batch of biscuit!

THE SECRET DOOR.

KNOWLE, in Kent, is an ancient manor-house. It stands knee-deep in rich garden and pasture lands, with hay-fields and apple-orchards stretching beyond, and solemn oak woods which whisper and shake their wise heads when the wind blows, as though possessed of secrets which must not be spoken.

Very much as it looks to-day, it looked two hundred and thirty years ago, when Charles the First was king of England. That was the Charles who had his head cut off, you may remember. Blue Christmas smokes curled from the twisted chimneys in 1645, just as they will this year if the world lasts so long as December. The same dinnery fragrance filled the air, for good cheer smells pretty much alike in all ages and the world over. A few changes there may be--thicker trees, beds of gay flowers which were not known in that day; and where once the moat--a ditch-like stream of green water covered with weeds and scum--ran round the walls, is now a trimly cut border of verdant turf. But these changes are improvements, and in all important respects the house keeps its old look, undisturbed by modern times and ways.

In the same nursery where modern boys and girls eat, sleep, and learn their A, B, C to-day, two children lived,--little Ralph Tresham and his sister Henrietta. Quaint, old-fashioned creatures they would look to us now; but, in spite of their formal dresses and speech, they were bright and merry and happy as any children you can find among your acquaintances. Ralph's name was pronounced "Rafe," and he always called his sister "Hexie."

Christmas did not come to Knowle in its usual bright shape in 1645. Gloom and sadness and anxiety overshadowed the house; and though the little ones did not understand what the cause of the anxiety was, they felt something wrong, and went about quietly whispering to each other in corners, instead of whooping and laughing, as had been their wont. They had eaten their Christmas beef, and toasted the king in a thimbleful of wine, as usual, but their mother cried when they did so; and Joyce, the old butler, had carried off the pudding with a face like a funeral. So after dinner they crept away to the nursery, and there, by the window, began a long whispering talk. Hexie had something very exciting to tell.

"Nurse thought I was asleep," she said, "but I wasn't quite; and when they began to talk I woke up. That wasn't wrong, was it, Rafe? I couldn't sleep when I couldn't, could I?"

"I suppose not; but you needn't have listened," said Rafe, whose notions about honor were very strict.

"I did pull the pillow over my ear, but the words would get in," went on Henrietta, piteously. "And it was so interesting. Did you know that there were such creatures as Bogies, Rafe? Dorothy thinks we have got one in our house, and that its hole is in the great gallery, because once when she was there dusting the armor, she heard a queer noise in the wall, and what else could it be? It eats a great deal, does the Bogie. That's the reason nurse is sure we have got one. It ate all the cold sheep's-head yesterday, and the day before half the big pasty. No victual is safe in the larder, the Bogie has such a big appetite, nurse says."

"I remember about the sheep's-head," said Rafe, meditatively. "Almost all of it was left, and I looked to see it come in cold; but when I asked, Joyce said there was none. Cold sheep's-head is very good. Do you remember how much Humphrey used to like it?"

"I don't remember exactly, it is so long ago," replied Hexie. "How long is it, brother?--since Humphrey went away, I mean. Won't he ever come back?"

"I asked Winifred once, but she only said, 'God knew,' that nothing had been heard of him since the battle when the king was taken. He might be dead, or he might be escaped into foreign parts--and then she cried, oh, so hard, Hexie! Poor Humphrey! I hope he isn't dead. But, about the Bogie, how curious it must be to meet one! Oh, I say, let us go to the gallery now, and listen if we can hear any strange noises there. Will you?"

"Oh, Rafe! I'm afraid. I don't quite like--"

"But you can't be afraid if I'm there," said Rafe, valiantly; "besides, I'll put on Humphrey's old sword which he left behind. Then if the Bogie comes--we shall see!"

Rafe spoke like a conquering hero, Hexie thought; so, though she trembled, she made no further objection, but stood by while he lifted down the sword, helped to fasten its belt over his shoulder, and followed along the passage which led to the gallery. The heavy sword clattered and rattled as it dragged on the floor, and the sound was echoed in a ghostly way, which renewed Hexie's fears.

"Rafe! Rafe! let us go back," she cried.

"Go back yourself if you are afraid," replied Ralph, stoutly; and as going back alone through the dim passage seemed just then worse than staying where she was, Hexie stayed with her valiant brother.

Very softly they unlatched the gallery door, and stole in. It was a long, lofty apartment, panelled with cedar-wood, to which time had given a beautiful light brown color. The ceiling, of the same wood, was carved, here and there, with shields, coats of arms, and other devices. There was little furniture: one tall cabinet, a few high-backed Dutch chairs, and some portraits hanging on the walls. The sun, not yet quite set, poured a stream of red light across the polished floor, leaving the far corners and the empty spaces formidably dusk. The children had seldom been in the gallery at this hour, and it looked to them almost like a strange place, not at all as it did at noonday when they came to jump up and down the slippery floor, and play hide-and-seek in the comers which now seemed so dark and dismal.

Even Rafe felt the difference, and shivered in spite of his bold heart and the big sword by his side. Timidly they went forward, hushing their footsteps and peering furtively into the shadows. Suddenly Hexie stopped with a little scream.

Close to them stood a huge suit of armor, larger and taller than a man. The empty eye-holes of the helmet glared out quite like real eyes, and the whole figure was terrible enough to frighten any little girl. But it was not at the armor that Hexie screamed; the iron man was an old friend of the children's. Many a game of hide-and-seek had they played around, and behind, and even inside him; for Humphrey had contrived a cunning way by which the figure could be taken to pieces and put together again; and more than once Rafe had been popped inside, and had lain shaking with laughter while Hexie vainly searched for him through all the gallery. This had not happened lately, for Rafe was hardly strong enough to manage by himself the screws and hinges which opened the armor; but he knew the iron man too well to scream at him, and so did Hexie. The object which excited her terror was something different, and so strange and surprising that it is no wonder she screamed.

Close by the armor, half hidden by a curtain of heavy tapestry, was an open door, where never door had been known to be. It stood ajar, and dimly visible inside was a narrow staircase winding upward.

"The hole of the Bogie!" gasped Hexie, clutching at Rafe's arm. He started, and felt for the sword. It rattled fearfully, and the sound completed Hexie's terror. She burst away, flew like a scared lapwing down the gallery, along the passages, and never stopped till she reached the nursery and her own bed, where, with two pillows and the quilt drawn over her head, she lay sobbing bitterly at the thought of Ralph left behind, to be eaten perhaps by the Bogie! Poor little Hexie!

Ralph, meanwhile, stood his ground. His heart beat very fast, but he would not run away,--that was for girls. It must be owned, however, that when a moment later the sound of muffled voices became audible down the stairs, he trembled extremely, and was guilty of the unmanlike act of hiding behind the curtain. He was only ten years old, which must plead his excuse with bigger boys who are confident that they could never, under any circumstances, hide themselves or be afraid.

The voices drew nearer, steps sounded, and two figures came out of the narrow doorway. Could there be two Bogies? No wonder they ate so much. But in another minute all thought of Bogies vanished from Ralph's mind, for in one of the figures he recognized his own sister Winifred.

Her companion was a man. There was something familiar in his form. It moved forward, and Ralph jumped so that the big sword rattled again. Bogie number two was his brother Humphrey, mourned as dead ever since the summer before, when so many brave gentlemen gave up their lives for King Charles at the battle of Naseby.

"What noise was that?" whispered Winifred, fearfully.

"Some sound from below," replied Humphrey, after listening a moment. "Must you go, Winnie?"

"I must, dear Humphrey. I dare not absent myself longer lest I be missed and suspected. Oh, if to-morrow were but over, and you safe on the French lugger and over the sea! I cannot breathe while this hiding and danger go on."

"I suppose I ought to be glad also," said Humphrey, ruefully; "but to me that French lugger means exile, and loneliness, and poverty, for the rest of my life, perhaps. Better have laid down my life with the rest at Naseby, in striking one last blow for the king."

"Don't, don't speak so!" protested Winifred, tearfully. "You are alive, thank God; and once these wars are over we may rejoin you, and have a happy home somewhere, if not in the land of our fathers. Now, dear Humphrey, have you all you need for the night?"

"Christmas cheer," said Humphrey, in a would-be cheerful voice. "Beef and ale,--what better fare could be? You are a gallant provider, my Winnie, and there is need, for since I have lain in that hole with nothing else to do, my appetite has raged like a wolf. That sheep's-head was wondrous savory. I say though, Winnie, what do the servants think of the famine I create in the larder?"

"Oh, the stupid things fancy that a Bogie has taken up his residence here. A very hungry Bogie, Joyce calls the creature!"

The brother and sister laughed; then they kissed each other.

"Good-night, dearest Winifred."

"Good-night, brother." And Humphrey vanished up the stairs. Winifred lingered a moment; then, as if remembering something, opened the door again and ran after him. Ralph marked that she laid her hand on a particular boss in the carved wainscot, and pressed it in hard, whereon the door sprang open. He stole out, laid his hand on the same boss, and felt the spring give way under his touch. Some undefined idea of stealing in later, to make Humphrey a visit, was in his head; but he heard Winifred returning, and hurried out of the gallery. Putting back the sword in its place, he entered the nursery. No Hexie was visible, but a sobbing sound drew his attention to a tumbled heap on the bed.

"Is that you, Hexie? Why, what are you crying about?" pulling away the pillow, which she held tight.

"Oh, Rafe! Then the Bogie didn't eat you, after all!" And Hexie buried her tear-stained face in his shoulder.

"Bogie! Nonsense! There are no such things as Bogies!"

"What was it, then, that lived up that dreadful stairs?"

"I can't tell you; only it was nothing at all dreadful. And, Hexie, don't say a word about that door to any one, will you? It might make great trouble if you did."

"I did tell Deborah, when she fetched the candle and asked why I cried, that I saw a strange door in the gallery," faltered Hexie, truthful, though penitent.

"Oh! Hexie, how could you? I don't like Deborah, and her father is a crop-eared knave. Humphrey said so one day. How could you talk to her about the door, Hexie?"

"I--don't know. I was frightened, and she asked me," sobbed Hexie. "Will it do any harm, Rafe?"

"It may," said Rafe, gloomily. "But don't cry, Hexie. You meant no harm, at all events."

"Oh, don't speak so gravely and so like Joyce," said Hexie, much troubled. She cried herself to sleep that night. Deborah, who undressed her, asked many questions about the gallery and the door.

"It was very dark, and perhaps I mistook,"--that was all Hexie could be made to say. Ralph was disturbed and wakeful, and slept later than usual next morning. He jumped up in a hurry and made what haste he could with dressing and breakfast, but it seemed as though they never took so much time before; and all the while he ate he was conscious of a stir and bustle in the house, which excited his curiosity very much. Knocking--the sound of feet--something unusual was going on.

As soon as possible he slipped away from nurse and ran to the gallery. The door was half open. He looked in, and stood still with terror. Men in brown uniforms and steel caps were there sounding the walls and tapping the floor-boards with staves. The gallery seemed full of them, though when Rafe counted there were but five.

"This man of iron was, in all likelihood, a Malignant also," he heard one of them say, striking the armor with his fist.

"He is somewhat old for that. Methinks that is armor of the time of that man of blood, Harry the Eighth. Move it aside, Jotham, that we may search the farther panel."

So the heavy figure was thrust into a corner, and the men went on tapping with their wands. Rafe groaned within himself when he heard them declare that the wall sounded hollow, and saw them searching for a spring. Twenty times it seemed as though they must have lighted on the right place. Twenty times they just missed it.

"We were ill advised to come without tools," declared the man who seemed leader of the party. "Come thou to my shop, Peter Kettle, and thou, Bartimeus and Zerubbabel, and we will fetch such things as are needful. Jotham, stay thou here, to see that no man escapeth from the concealment behind the wall."

So four of the men went away, leaving Jotham striding up and down as on guard. Presently came a shout from beneath the window,--

"Jotham! our leader hath dropped his pouch in which are the keys of the smithy. Hasten and bring it to the outer door."

"Aye, aye!" answered Jotham, and, pouch in hand, he ran down the stairs. Now was Rafe's opportunity. Like a flash he was across the gallery, his hand on the boss. The door flew open, and he fell into the arms of Humphrey, who, sword in hand and teeth set, stood on the lower step of the staircase, prepared to sell his liberty as dearly as possible.

"Rafe! little Rafe!" he exclaimed.

"Hush! The man will come back," panted Rafe. "Come away--hide--oh, where?" Then with a sudden inspiration he dragged his brother toward the iron man. "Get inside," he cried. "They will never think of searching there! Oh, Humphrey--make haste! Get inside!"

There was no time to be lost. With the speed of desperation, Humphrey unscrewed, lifted, stepped inside the armor. Rafe slipped the fastenings together, whispered "Shut your eyes," and flew back to his hiding-place. Just in time, for Jotham's step was on the stair, and next moment he entered the gallery, and resumed his march up and down, little dreaming that the man sought for was peeping through the helmet holes at him, not three feet away.

Presently the other soldiers came back with hammers and wrenches, and in a short time the beautiful wainscot, split into pieces, lay on the floor. Suddenly there was a shout. The secret door had flown open, and the staircase stood revealed. Four of the men, with pikes and pistols, prepared to ascend, while the fifth guarded the opening below.

At that moment Winifred entered the gallery from the farther end. She turned deadly pale when she saw the open door and the men.

"Oh! Heaven have mercy!" she cried, and dropped half fainting into a chair.

Rafe darted across the floor and seized her hand.

"Hush," he whispered. "Don't say a word, sister. _He_ is safe."

"He? Who?" cried the amazed Winifred.

But now voices sounded from above. The men were coming down. Winifred rallied her courage, rose, and went forward. She was very white still, but she spoke in a steady voice. Her two brothers, Humphrey in his hiding-place and little Rafe by her side, both admired her greatly.

"What is the meaning of this, Jotham Green?" she demanded. "By what warrant do you enter and spoil our house?"

"By the warrant which all true men have to search for traitors," said Jotham.

"You will find none such here," responded Winifred, firmly.

"We find the lurking-place in which one such has doubtless lain," said Zerubbabel. "Where holes exist, look out for vermin."

"You are less than civil, neighbor. An old house like this has many strange nooks and corners of which the inhabitants may have neither use nor knowledge. If your search is done, I will beg you to make good the damage you have caused as best you may, and with as little noise as possible, that my mother be not alarmed. Jotham Green, you are a good workman, I know. I recollect how deftly you once repaired that cabinet for us."

All the men knew Winifred, and her calm and decided manner made its impression. Jotham slowly picked up the fragments of the panelling and began to fit them together. The rest consulted, and at last rather sheepishly, and with a muttered half apology about "wrong information," went away, taking with them the injured woodwork, which Jotham undertook to repair. Rafe's first words after they disappeared were,--

"Winifred, you must dismiss Deborah. It is she that has betrayed us."

"How do you know that, Rafe?"

Then it all came out. Winifred listened to the tale with streaming tears.

"Oh, Rafe, my darling, how brave you were! You played the man for us to-day, and have saved--I trust you have saved--our Humphrey. The men will not return to-day, and to-night the lugger sails."

And Humphrey was saved. Before morning, well disguised, he had made his way across country to a little fishing-port, embarked, and reached France without further accident.

So that strange Christmas adventure ended happily. It was all long, long ago. Humphrey and Winifred and Rafe lived their lives out, and lay down to rest a century and a half since under the daisy-sprinkled English sod. Little Hexie died an aged woman, before any of us was born. But still the beautiful old manor-house stands amid its gardens and pasture lands, with the silvery look of time on its gray walls. Still the armed figure keeps guard beside the secret staircase, the tapestry hangs in the old heavy folds, evening reddens the cedar walls and the polished floor, and everything occupies the same place and wears the same look that it did when little Rafe played the man in that gallery, and saved his brother Humphrey, more than two hundred years ago.

THE TWO WISHES.

PIEROT and Pierotte were a small brother and sister who were always wishing to be something that they were not, or to have something which they had not. They were not unhappy or discontented children,--far from it. Their home, though poor, was comfortable; their parents, though strict, were kind: they were used to both, and desired nothing better. Wishing with them was a habit, an idle game which they were forever playing. It meant little, but it sounded ill; and a stranger, listening, would have judged them less well-off and cheerful than they really were.

"I wish I needn't wake up, but might lie still all day," was Pierotte's first thought every morning; while Pierot's was, "I wish Pierotte wasn't such a sleepy-head, for then we could get out before sunrise, and gather every mushroom in the meadow while the Blaize children are still snoring in their beds." Then later, at breakfast, Pierotte would say, "I wish I were the Princess, to have coffee and white bread for my _dejeuner_, instead of tiresome porridge. I am tired of porridge. White bread and coffee must be better,--much better!" But all the time she spoke, Pierotte's spoon, travelling between her bowl and mouth, conveyed the "tiresome" porridge down her throat as rapidly as though it were the finest Mocha; and Pierotte enjoyed it as much, though she fancied that she did not.

"I wish I were the young Comte Jules," Pierot would next begin in his turn. "No fagots to bind, no cow to fodder, no sheep to tend. Ah! a fine life he leads! Beautiful clothes, nothing to do. Six meals a day, two of them dinners, a horse to ride,--everything! I wish--"

"And a nice yellow skin and eyes like boiled gooseberries," chimed in his mother. "Better wish for these while you are about it. Much you know of noblemen and their ways! Didst ever have an indigestion? Tell me that. When thou hast tried one, wish for it again, if thou canst."

Then Pierot would laugh sheepishly, shoulder his hatchet, and go off after wood, the inseparable Pierotte trotting by his side. As they went, it would be,--

"I wish I were a bird," or "I wish we could jump like that grasshopper;" or, "Pierotte, I wish our godfather had left us his money. We should be rich then."

For the children had the same godfather. Pierotte first, and then Pierot having been named after their father's cousin, a well-to-do peasant, who it was expected would remember his little relatives in his will. This hope had been disappointed, and the children's regrets were natural and excusable, since even the wise dame, their mother, did not conceal her opinion of Cousin Pierre's conduct, which she considered irregular and dishonest. Children soon learn to join in chorus with older voices, and Pierot and Pierotte, in this case, found it particularly easy, as it chimed with the habit of their lives.

One warm July morning their mother roused them for an early breakfast, and sent them into the forest after wood.

"My last fagot is in," she said. "You must bind and tie smartly to-day. And, Pierotte, help thy brother all that thou canst, for the father cannot spare him to go again this week, and on Saturday is the sennight's baking."

So they set forth. The sun was not fairly risen, but his light went before his coming, and even in the dim forest-paths it was easy to distinguish leaf from flower. Shadows fell across the way from the trees, which stood so motionless that they seemed still asleep. Heavy dew hung on the branches; the air was full of a rare perfume, made up of many different fragrances, mixed and blended by the cunning fingers of the night. A little later, and the light broadened. Rays of sun filtered through the boughs, a wind stirred, and the trees roused themselves, each with a little shake and quiver. Somehow, the forest looked unfamiliar, and like a new place to the children that morning. They were not often there at so early an hour, it is true, but this did not quite account for the strange aspect of the woods. Neither of them knew, or, if they knew, they had forgotten, that it was Midsummer's Day, the fairies' special festival. Nothing met their eyes, no whir of wings or sparkle of bright faces from under the fern-branches, but a sense of something unusual was in the air, and the little brother and sister walked along in silence, peering curiously this way and that, with an instinctive expectation of unseen wonders.

"Isn't it lovely?" whispered Pierotte, at last. "It never looked so pretty here as it does to-day. See that wild-rose,--how many flowers it has! Oh! what was that? It waved at me!"

"What waved?"

"The rose. It waved a white arm at me!"

"Nonsense! It was the wind," replied Pierot, sturdily, leading the way into a side-path which led off from the rose-bush.

"Is it much farther where we get the wood?" asked Pierotte, for the children had been walking a considerable time.

"Father said we were to go to the hazel copse," answered Pierot. "We must be almost there."

So for half an hour longer they went on and on, but still no sign of fallen trees or wood-choppers appeared, and Pierot was forced to confess that he must have mistaken the road.

"It is queer, too," he said. "There was that big red toadstool where the paths joined. I noticed it the other day when I came with the father. What's the matter?" for Pierotte had given a sudden jump.

"Some one laughed," said Pierotte, in an awe-struck tone.

"It was a cricket or tree-toad. Who is here to laugh?"

Pierotte tried hard to believe him, but she did not feel comfortable, and held Pierot's sleeve tight as they went. He felt the trembling of the little hand.

"Pierotte, thou art a goose!" he said; but all the same he put his arm round her shoulders, which comforted her so that she walked less timorously.

One path after another they tried, but none of them led to the cleared spot where the fallen trees lay. The sun rose high, and the day grew warmer, but in the forest a soft breeze blew, and kept them cool. Hour after hour passed; the children had walked till they were tired. They rested awhile, ate half their dinner of curds and black bread, then they went on again, turned, twisted, tried paths to right and paths to left, but still the dense woods closed them in, and they had no idea where they were or how they should go.

Suddenly the track they were following led to a little clearing, in which stood a tiny hut, with a fenced garden full of cherry-trees and roses. It was such a surprise to find this fertile and blooming spot in the heart of the wild wood, that the children stood still with their mouths open, to stare at it.

"How strange!" gasped Pierot, when at last he found his voice. "The father always said that ours was the only hut till you got to the other side the forest."

"Perhaps this _is_ the other side," suggested Pierotte.

An odd chuckling laugh followed this remark, and they became aware of an old woman sitting at the window of the cottage,--a comical old woman, with a stiff square cap on her head, sharp twinkling eyes, and a long hooked nose. As the children looked, she laughed again, and, extending her finger, beckoned them to come nearer.

Timidly they obeyed, setting down their big wood-basket at the gate. The old woman leaned over the window to await them, her hand on a square glass jar full of yellow liquid, in which floated what seemed to be a pickled serpent with his tail in three coils, and the tip in his mouth. Pierotte shuddered at the serpent, but Pierot was bolder.

"Did you want us, good madam?" he asked.

"Want you? No," replied the "good madam." "How should I want you? I saw you staring at my house as if your eyes would pop out of your heads, and I thought, perhaps, you wanted me."

"It was only--we were only--surprised," stammered Pierot. "Because we didn't know that there was a house here."

"There was none last night, and there won't be any to-morrow morning--at least--none for children to stare at," replied the old woman, coolly.

"What _do_ you mean?" cried Pierot, astonished beyond measure. "How can a house be built in one night? And why won't it be here to-morrow?"

"Because to-morrow won't be Midsummer's Day--and to-day is," replied the old woman; "and a fairy-house is visible to mortal eyes at that time, and no other."

"Fairy-house!" faltered Pierot; while Pierotte, jumping more rapidly to a conclusion, fairly screamed: "Oh, Pierot! Madam, then, is a fairy! A real fairy! Pierot, think of it, only think of it!"

"Very much at your service," said the old woman, with a malicious smile. "Do you like fairies, then? Do you admire my pickled snake? Would you wish to pull some flowers?"

Something in the smile made Pierotte draw back; but Pierot said politely,--

"One rose, perhaps--since Madam is so good."

The fairy leaned out and plucked a rose from the vine which grew on the wall close by.

"Now listen," she said. "Each of my roses encloses a wish. You are great wishers, I know;" and her eyes twinkled queerly. "This time the wish will come true, so take care what you are about. There will be no coming to get me to undo the wish, for I shan't be visible again till this time next year on Midsummer's Day,--you know."

"Oh, Pierot! what shall we wish for?" cried Pierotte, much excited; but the old woman only repeated, "Take care!" drew her head in at the window, and all in a minute--how, they could not explain--the cottage had vanished, the garden, the gate,--they were in the wood again, with nothing but trees and bushes about them; and all would have seemed like a dream, except for the red and fragrant rose which Pierot held in his hand.

"What shall we wish for?" repeated Pierotte, as they seated themselves under a tree to talk over this marvellous adventure.

"We must be very careful, and ask for something nice," replied Pierot.

"It would be better to wait and think for a long time first," suggested Pierotte.

"Thou art right. We will. Art thou not hungry?"

"Oh, so hungry! Let us eat the rest of our bread now. I can't wait any longer."

So Pierot produced the big lump of bread, and divided it into two equal portions.

"Look, look!" cried Pierotte, as her teeth met in the first mouthful. "A cherry-tree, brother,--a real cherry-tree here in the woods! And with ripe cherries on it! How good some would be with our bread!"

"First-rate!" cried Pierot; and, putting their bread carefully on the grass, both ran to the tree. Alas! the boughs grew high, and the cherries hung far beyond their reach. Pierot tried to climb the tree, but the stem was both slight and slippery. Then they found a forked stick, but vainly attempted to hook and draw down a branch.

"Oh, dear! I wish we were both grown up," cried Pierot, panting with exertion.

"So do I. If we were as old as father and mother, we could reach the boughs without even getting on tiptoe," chimed in Pierotte.

Luckless words! As Pierot spoke, the rose, which he had stuck in his cap, shrivelled and faded, while a queer sensation as if he were being carried up into the air swept over him. He clutched at something to hold himself down. That something was the cherry-tree bough! He could reach it now, and as his eyes turned with dismay toward Pierotte, there she stood, also holding a twig of the tree, only two or three inches lower than his own. Her pretty round cheeks and childish curls were gone, and instead of them he beheld a middle-aged countenance with dull hair, a red nose, and a mouth fallen in for lack of teeth. She, on her part, unconscious of the change, was staring at him with a horrified expression.

"Why, Pierot!" she cried at last, in a voice which sounded as old as her face, "how queer you look! You've got a beard, and your forehead is all criss-cross and wrinkly, and your chin rough. Dear me, how ugly you are! I never thought you could be so ugly."

"Ugly, eh! Perhaps you would like to see your own face," said Pierot, enraged at this flattering criticism. "Just wait till we get home, and I show you the old looking-glass. But stay, we needn't wait;" and he dragged Pierotte to the side of a little pool of still water, which had caught his eye among the bushes. "Here's a looking-glass ready made," he went on. "Look, Pierotte, and see what a beauty you have become."

Poor Pierotte! She took one look, gave a scream, and covered her face with her hands.

"That me?" she cried. "Oh! I never, never will think it! What is the matter with us, Pierot? Was it that horrid fairy, do you think? Did she bewitch us?"

"The wish!" faltered Pierot, who at that moment caught sight of the faded rose in his cap. "I wished that we were both grown up, don't you remember? Oh, what a fool I was!"

"You horrid boy! You have gone and wished me into an ugly old woman! I'll never forgive you!" sobbed Pierotte.

"It was your wish too. You said you would like to be as old as father and mother. So you needn't call me horrid!" answered Pierot, angrily.

Silence followed, broken only by Pierotte's sobs. The two old children sat with their backs to each other, under different trees. By and by Pierot's heart began to smite him.

"It was more my fault than hers," he thought; and, turning round a little way, he said coaxingly, "Pierotte."

No answer. Pierotte only stuck out her shoulder a little and remained silent.

"Don't look so cross," went on Pierot. "You can't think how horrid it makes you--a woman of your age!"

"I'm not a woman of my age. Oh, how can you say such things?" sobbed Pierotte. "I don't want to be grown-up. I want to be a little girl again."

"You used to be always wishing you were big," remarked her now big brother.

"Y--es, so I was; but I never meant all at once. I wanted to be big enough to spin--and the--mother--was--going--to teach me," went on poor Pierotte, crying bitterly, "and I wanted to be as big as Laura Blaize--and--pretty--and some day have a sweetheart, as she had--and--but what's the use--I've lost it all, and I'm grown up, and old and ugly already, and the mother won't know me, and the father will say, 'My little Pierotte--Coeur de St. Martin--impossible! get out, you witch!'" Overcome by this dreadful picture, Pierotte hid her face and cried louder than ever.

"I'll tell you what," said Pierot, after a pause, "don't let us go home at all. We will just hide here in the woods for a year, and when Midsummer's Day comes round, we'll hunt till we find the fairy house again, and beg the fairy, on our knees, for another wish, and if she says 'yes,' we'll wish at once to be little just as we were this morning, and _then_ we'll go home directly."

"Poor mother; she will think we are dead!" sighed Pierotte.