Chapter II: Part 2

Meanwhile Mrs. Methuen had found and packed up two pairs of thick cream-coloured casement curtains. She ran tapes in them ready to put up, for she was convinced there would be no rods; she also packed a hammer and nails, but she never knew what it was caused her to slip her travelling flask of brandy into the pocket of her coat.

She fetched the boys, and her small son roared in indignation at their departure, which upset her extremely.

However, it was getting late and the windows in Holywell were bare.

Meanwhile Mr. Wycherly had been working very hard: stooping and lifting, carrying and stretching, to arrange the Earlier Latin Authors in the top shelf of an empty bookcase. Some of the authors were heavy and calf-bound and Mr. Wycherly, who had eaten hardly anything at all that day, began to feel very tired. He was quite unused to violent exercise of any kind, and presently he became conscious of a most unpleasant pain in his left side. "A stitch, I suppose," he said to himself and went on stooping and lifting, for he had come to the last layer of books and wanted to feel that one case at any rate was unpacked.

The boys and Mrs. Methuen returned, but he didn't hear them.

"I'll go upstairs and begin at once," said Mrs. Methuen, "and you needn't tell Mr. Wycherly anything about it till I've gone."

She and Edmund went up into Mr. Wycherly's bedroom while Montagu tried to find his guardian. He was not in either of the sitting-rooms. That they had seen from the windows before they came in. Nor was he in the kitchen or the garden. At last Montagu bethought him of the hitherto unused study, climbed the steep, crooked staircase, and went down the sloping passage to look.

Mrs. Methuen was standing on a chair at one side of the window fastening the tape of a curtain round a nail she had just knocked in, while Edmund stood on another chair at the other side, holding the rest of the curtain that its fairness might not be sullied by contact with the extremely dusty floor, when Montagu burst into the room looking very frightened.

"D'you think you could come?" he asked breathlessly. "I'm afraid Guardie's ill or something, he's so white and he doesn't seem able to speak for gasping."

Down went the nice curtains in an untidy heap on the dressing-table as Mrs. Methuen leapt off the chair, seized something from her coat which was lying on the bed, and followed Montagu. Edmund had already gone.

Mr. Wycherly was sitting huddled up in his chair. His face looked wan and drawn in the fading light; he certainly was breathing heavily and with great difficulty. But when he saw Mrs. Methuen he made an ineffectual attempt to rise. She tore the silver cup from the bottom of the flask and tumbled the contents hastily into it.

"Don't try to get up," she said as she knelt down beside him; "you're a little faint; drink this, please, at once."

She literally poured the brandy down Mr. Wycherly's throat. "Clear those books off the sofa, boys," she commanded; "carefully now! Ah, that's better. Now you must lie down for a few minutes; it's bad to sit forward like that."

Somehow in three minutes this energetic young lady had taken entire command of the situation. Mr. Wycherly was helped on to the sofa, Edmund had fetched a rug to cover him, and she and Montagu were wrestling with the huge gothic window, which should have opened like a door in the centre and was, apparently, hermetically sealed. At last it yielded to their combined efforts, and the sweet, fresh evening air rushed into the room.

"Please finish the brandy," said Mrs. Methuen in precisely the same voice in which she would have adjured her baby not to leave any milk in his bottle. "You're completely done up; no proper food, no fresh air. I never felt anything like the atmosphere of this room; and then stooping and lifting heavy books on the top of all the rest. No wonder your heart gave out. I can't think why they make the cups of flasks such an awkward shape."

Mr. Wycherly meekly took the cup from her hand and drained it. Already his face looked less ashy and he could speak.

"I cannot tell you," he began----

"Don't try to tell us anything yet; for five minutes you are to stay perfectly quiet. I'll leave Montagu in charge, and he is not to allow you to stir till I come back. Come, Edmund."

Edmund's round face was very serious as he followed Mrs. Methuen back to the bedroom. Aunt Esperance, as he always put it, "was away." Aunt Esperance, who had seemed a necessary part of life--beneficent, immutable, inevitable. Yet she had gone, and her place knew her no more. Might not a like thing happen to Mr. Wycherly? And, if so, what was to become of him and Montagu?

Edmund was not imaginative. He lived his jolly life wholly without thought of the morrow. But at that moment he was startled into a realisation of how much he loved his guardian.

As once more he and Mrs. Methuen mounted their two chairs and started to put up the curtains again he looked across at her and noted with a sudden painful contraction of the heart that her face was very grave.

"You don't think, do you," he asked in a low voice, "that Guardie is going to die?"

Mrs. Methuen started and nearly dropped the curtain. "Oh, dear, no," she exclaimed hastily; "but you must take more care of him and not let him lift books or anything of that sort. When people are not very young they have to take things easily. You and Montagu must unpack the books and he can arrange them, but you must not let him stoop over the cases. Do you understand? He mustn't do it."

They finished the curtains in no time, and when Mrs. Methuen went back to the study Mr. Wycherly hastily arose from the sofa, where he had lain obediently ever since she put him there.

"I don't know how to thank you," he began----

"Please don't try," Mrs. Methuen said briskly. "The boys and I are having such fun, but I'm sorry to say that I must--I simply must--give you a little lecture. Boys! someone is knocking at the front door; go down and see who it is while I scold Mr. Wycherly."

Mrs. Methuen's own kitchen-maid, accompanied by a stout, fresh-coloured woman, carrying a large brown-paper parcel, were at the door, and Mrs. Methuen herself came down in a minute or two, when she explained that the rosy woman was one Mrs. Dew, that she had come "to look after them," and would stay with them till they got a proper servant. Moreover, the kitchen-maid carried a large basket of provisions. The fires had gone out in both kitchen and dining-room, and the evening was growing chill. That kitchen-maid lit both in no time. Mr. Wycherly was brought downstairs and installed in his big chair by the dining-room fire, and Mrs. Methuen went home. Yet once more she came back that night, and she swept the two boys up to their room and insisted on their putting all their clothes in drawers and cupboards under her supervision, and she and Mrs. Dew did the same by Mr. Wycherly without informing him of the fact.

Nothing could less have resembled the methods of Mrs. Griffin than those of Mrs. Dew. With her advent everything was changed at the house in Holywell. Order was evolved out of chaos, dust disappeared as if by magic, boxes were unpacked and removed empty to the attic, while, most important of all, meals were punctual and appetising.

Mrs. Dew had the extremely deferent manner of the well-trained servant who has "lived in good families." To Mr. Wycherly this manner was immensely soothing, coming as it did after his long experience of the dictatorial and somewhat familiar bearing of the Scottish servants at Remote. Mrs. Dew "knew her place" and kept to it rigidly, and Edmund found her rather unapproachable. Anything like reserve in his intercourse with his fellow-creatures was abhorrent to Edmund, and he pursued Mrs. Dew with questions as to her past, her present, and her future, getting, however, but small satisfaction for his pains.

"Have you any children, Mrs. Dew?" he demanded one day, when he had sought her in the kitchen for social purposes.

"No, sir, not of my own."

"Any grandchildren?"

"Certainly not, sir."

"No one belonging to you at all?"

"Of course, sir, I 'ave my relations, same as other folks."

"What sort of relations?"

"Well, for one, sir, I have a niece."

"Big or little?"

"About your own size, sir, though, I daresay, she's a bit older."

"Where does she live?"

"With me, sir, when she isn't at school. She's an orphan."

"Oh, like us. Where is she now?"

"Here, in Oxford."

"What's her name?"

"Jane-Anne, sir; but if I may say so, I don't think the kitchen's the proper place for a young gentleman like you."

"When shall I see Jane-Anne?"

"I don't suppose as you'll see her at all, sir, your paths in life being, so to speak, different."

Edmund sighed. "I wish you were a more telling sort of person, Mrs. Dew," he said sadly. "If you like to ask me any questions, you'll soon see what a lot I'd tell you."

"I hope I know my place better, sir!" Mrs. Dew remarked primly.

That afternoon he gave it up as a bad job.

Edmund did not forget his grudge against Miss Selina Brooks. By some curious mental process of unreasoning he traced Mr. Wycherly's sudden faintness, that had frightened them so much, to that good lady's letter about the curtainless windows. She had worried his Guardie, and therefore she was his enemy.

It did not in the least affect Edmund's opinion of her that Mr. Wycherly wrote a most courteous note thanking her for hers.

Edmund intended to be even with Miss Selina Brooks, but he bided his time.

The attics in Holywell were particularly large and splendid. There were only two, and they occupied the whole of the top floor, while each was reached by a separate staircase, and had no communication with the other. In all, there were five different sets of stairs in that old house. One attic was dedicated to the reception of empty boxes; but the other--which possessed a heavenly little crooked room opening out of it, in that third gable which boasted the small square window looking sideways down the street--Mr. Wycherly had given to the boys for their very own play-room.

At present there was nothing in it save two or three derelict chairs and a four-post bed with canopy and voluminous white dimity curtains. For some reason best known to herself, Mrs. Griffin had put up the curtains belonging to this bed which nobody wanted.

Just outside one of the doors on that landing was a curious little cupboard with strong oak doors, not more than three feet high. This cupboard was very dark, apparently very deep, and quite devoid of shelves or pegs.

During their first uncomfortable days the boys had not felt particularly interested in cupboards; but as things grew more peaceful and accustomed Edmund of the inquiring mind discovered this particular cubby-house. Montagu was not with him at the time, as now that they were settled, he did Greek for an hour every morning with Mr. Wycherly just before luncheon.

Edmund thrust his arm in as far as it would go, but couldn't reach the back, though the floor seemed to slope upwards. Carefully propping the door open with a chair, he crawled in on hands and knees. Once in, he found that floor and roof sloped steeply upwards and the roof was just over his head, he couldn't even kneel. He crawled further in, quite a long way, and the tunnel turned sharply to the right. He could no longer see the glimmer of light from the landing, but he had reached the end of the tunnel. At the same moment his head struck something that stuck out, and when he put up his hand he felt that it was a key by its shape. This was most exciting and must be investigated at once. There was no room to turn, so Edmund half crawled, half slid backwards out of the sloping tunnel, and flew downstairs to get some matches. To his joy he met nobody, which was as well, for he was covered with dust and cobwebs from head to foot. He rushed upstairs again feeling very adventurous and important, and once more crawled into the cupboard to the very end of the tunnel. He struck a match and found that he was up against another door, in the roof this time and precisely like the first one in every respect except that it had a large, heavy lock at one side, and in the lock was the rusty key that had hit him on the head. By no endeavour could Edmund get that key to turn. He lit match after match, throwing them carelessly on the old oak floor in a fashion that would have made Mr. Wycherly's hair stand on end had he seen it, and finally decided that alone he could not manage that door, and that Montagu must be taken into the secret.

Montagu was still closeted with Mr. Wycherly, so Edmund wandered into the kitchen, where Mrs. Dew, exclaiming at his appearance, promptly dusted, brushed, and washed him, much to his annoyance. However, he bore it with as good grace as possible, and then with disarming meekness asked: "What do you do, Mrs. Dew, when a key won't turn; an old sort of key in an iron lock?"

"Have you been down in the cellar, Master Edmund?" Mrs. Dew asked suspiciously. "Is that where you got all that dust and cobwebs? You've no business there, you know, meddlin' with locks."

"I haven't been near the cellar," Edmund answered indignantly; "dust and cobwebs seem just to come and sit on me wherever I go; I can't help it. But what do you do to a box, now, that won't open?" he added diplomatically, "when the key sticks and won't turn?"

"You wait till afternoon, sir, and I'll help you to open any box you want opened. But you might go and oil the lock if you like, then it can soak in till I come."

Edmund joyfully accepted the little bottle of oil and the feather that Mrs. Dew offered him, and flew upstairs again. This time he borrowed the candle from beside Mr. Wycherly's bed, lighted it, and took it with him.

Into his cupboard he went. He oiled and oiled: himself, the lock, the door, and the floor. He tried the key with one hand, he tried it with two. He got fearfully hot and exceedingly cross, and still that key refused to turn. Finally, in a rage, he put his shoulders under the door and heaved with all his might. The door in the roof seemed to yield a little, and this inspired Edmund to further efforts. He shoved and shoved, and pushed and pushed, till at last, quite suddenly, the whole thing gave, opening upwards and outwards. Edmund's head emerged into the light of day, and with rapture he discovered that he had only to step out on to the flat roof of a portion of the next house, which was considerably higher than Mr. Wycherly's.

His mysterious door was a skylight that had been boarded in. Why that curious tunnel was cut off from the rest of the house they never knew, but the little square of leads was a source of infinite joy to Edmund and Montagu till they grew too wide to wiggle through the passage. Nor did Edmund, with the curious reticence of children, inform either Mr. Wycherly or Mrs. Dew of his find.

A low parapet faced the street, and sloping slate roofs formed the two other sides of this delightful square. Edmund advanced to the edge of the parapet. He found that he looked straight across the road into a top bedroom of the house opposite. A bedroom so high that it had only curtains, ordinary dark curtains, not drawn at all; no short blind, and only a low dressing-table and small looking-glass to fill up the window. Edmund sat down hastily lest he should be seen, for there was somebody in the room opposite. Somebody with bare arms who was doing her hair.

Cautiously Edmund's head appeared above the parapet, and a look of vindictive glee overspread his hot and dirty face.

It was Miss Selina Brooks herself, and fate had delivered her into his hands.

The hair of Miss Selina Brooks was not abundant, and she added to it sundry tresses such as are described by fashion-papers as "graceful adjuncts." Edmund waited till the adjuncts were all in their proper place. Then he descended into his passage, shut the oak skylight, shut also the little gothic door leading to this undreamt-of paradise, retired to the bath-room to wash, lest Mrs. Dew should catch him again; and then, very quietly, went downstairs to the parlour, where, in the words of the French exercise, he sought "pens, ink and paper."

Edmund did not possess the pen of a ready writer; it was some time before he drafted a letter to his liking, but in its final form the missive ran thus:--

"DEAR MADDUM,

"I think it only right to inform you that I can see you doing your hair, both what is on and what is off, and I find it very depressing. I therefore venture to suggest that a blind should be affixed without delay. It's worse than ablushuns.

"Yours truly,
"EDMUND BETHUNE ESQRE."

This Edmund folded and placed in an envelope, which he sealed with his great-grandfather's seal. He then trotted across the road and dropped it into Miss Selina Brooks' letter-box.

Unlike Mr. Wycherly, Miss Brooks did not write to thank Edmund Bethune, Esqre. for his information; but that afternoon Nottingham lace curtains were put up at that top window, so closely drawn that not even a chink remained between them. When he beheld them Edmund smiled seraphically.

*CHAPTER III*

*THE PRINCESS*

"Thro' light and shadow thou dost range,
Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites and darling angers,
And airy forms of flitting change."
LORD TENNYSON.

There were white curtains at the windows in all the front rooms now. Mr. Wycherly's books were ranged on their appointed shelves and the packing cases removed to the attic. Mrs. Dew was admitted to the study with duster and broom, and it began to look home-like and habitable. Once more did Mr. Wycherly sit at his knee-hole table engaged in his great work upon the Nikomachean ethics. The family was settling down.

"Will everybody come and see us now they know we're here?" asked Edmund, who had invaded the study one afternoon just after luncheon.

"I'm not at all sure that anyone will come and see us," Mr. Wycherly answered serenely. "Why should they?"

"Oh, well, for friendliness. How are we to get to know people if they don't come and see us? Shall we go and see them?"

"Certainly not," Mr. Wycherly said hastily. "That would be pushing and impertinent."

"But I like knowing folks," Edmund persisted. "I knew everybody at Burnhead."

"Burnhead is a little village. Oxford is a big town, and in big towns people are too busy to concern themselves about newcomers."

"Not Mrs. Methuen," Edmund argued. "She takes a great interest in us."

"She is a kind and gracious lady," said Mr. Wycherly, "but you mustn't expect everybody to be like Mrs. Methuen."

"I don't want them to be like her. I want them to be different; but I want some more people to come soon. I know the milkman, of course, and the butcher and two postmen (we'd only one in Burnhead), but that's not enough. You see they don't come in and have a crack. The butcher's an awfully nice man. I wish you knew him, Guardie. Why don't they ever come in?"

"I expect they are too busy. As it is, it seems to me that some people's meat must arrive very late if you have already found time to discover the butcher's amiable qualities during his morning visit."

"You should hear him whistle," Edmund persisted. "I'd give anything to whistle like him."

Mr. Wycherly did not answer. His mental attitude with regard to the butcher's musical efforts was coldly unsympathetic.

"Why do you never whistle, Guardie?"

"I don't feel the smallest desire to whistle."

"But, _why_ don't you?"

Just at this moment Mrs. Dew appeared bearing a tray with a visiting card upon it, while behind her came Montagu, breathless with excitement, to announce that "a lady and a gentleman and a wee girl were waiting in the parlour to see Mr. Wycherly."

On the card were the names of "Mr. and Mrs. William Wycherly."

"There, Edmund," said Mr. Wycherly, "you've got your wish. Here are visitors, and one of them is an old friend," and looking really pleased he hastened downstairs to the parlour, followed by the boys.

Seated in the deep window-seat was a tall young lady with fair hair; beside her was a little girl, and a gentleman was standing on the hearthrug. As Mr. Wycherly came in the lady crossed the room towards him holding out both her hands. She seemed extraordinarily glad to see him, and he held the friendly hands in his for quite a long time, while she laughed and blushed and introduced her husband. Then she turned to the boys: "Do neither of you remember me? Six years is a long time--but you might, Montagu?"

"Weren't you bonnie Margaret?" Montagu asked shyly.

"She is bonnie Margaret," said Mr. Wycherly, "and this is my nephew."

"Nobody is taking any notice of me," said a clear, high voice, and the handshaking group in the middle of the room turned to look at the little figure standing all lonely in the window-seat.

"That is our daughter Herrick," laughed Mrs. Wycherly; "a very important person--quite unused to be overlooked."

This was evident. The small girl stood in the seat silhouetted against the window, a quaint, sedately fearless little figure with a somewhat reproving expression on the round face framed in a Dutch bonnet. Under the bonnet and over her shoulders billowed masses of yellow curls that broke into misty clouds of fine spun floss that caught and held the April sunshine. Her short-waisted coat, reaching nearly to her heels, was of a warm tan-colour, and she carried a large, imposing-looking muff of the same material bordered with fur.

Her mother lifted her down and led her to Mr. Wycherly, who bowed gravely over the small hand extended to him, but did not kiss her, as she evidently expected him to do; for she looked at him with large, trustful eyes, smiling the while a confident smile that showed even white teeth and deliciously uneven dimples in cheeks as fresh and pink as the almond blossom just then bursting into flower.

Mrs. William Wycherly was Lady Alicia's youngest daughter. Montagu vaguely remembered that there was a great fuss at the time of bonnie Margaret's marriage, and that he had heard it whispered that she had run away and that her mother was very angry. So he looked with great interest at the gracious and beautiful young woman who had been so kind to them when they were little. Certainly retribution did not appear to have overtaken her. She looked radiantly well and happy, and Montagu decided that her husband looked kind and pleasant. Herrick stood leaning up against her mother's knee, silently taking stock first of Montagu, then of Edmund, then of Montagu again, turning her gravely scrutinising eyes from one to the other without a trace of embarrassment or shyness.

Presently Mr. Wycherly suggested that the boys should show Herrick the garden.

"Will you go with them, darling?" asked her mother, and Herrick, evidently satisfied with her investigations, declared her willingness to do so.

Once outside the parlour door, the steep, crooked staircase attracted her attention.

"I'd like to go up that; can I, boy?" she asked Edmund.

"Let's take her and show her our attic," he suggested. Edmund loved the attics.

"Shall I carry you?" asked Montagu; "it's a long stair."

"Certainly not," said the little girl with great dignity; "peoples as old as me always walk upstairs."

She fell up a good many times during the ascent, for she kept stepping on her long coat in front, and every time she tripped she said: "Oh, dear, how tahsome!"

At length they reached the attic, and the moment she saw the four-post bed with the curtains she made a dart towards it, crying joyfully, "Oh, what a beautiful castle it will make. Now we can play my game."

She attempted to scramble up on to the bed, but again the coat got in the way and prevented her.

"Please take it off," she commanded, standing quite still, "and my bonnet."

Montagu unbuttoned the coat and untied the strings of the bonnet.

"That's better," she said; "now we can begin."

In a moment she was up on the bed and had darted behind the curtains which she immediately drew closely till she was well hidden.

Montagu and Edmund looked at one another. What in the world did this portend?

Presently the curtains were parted a little, and a round, rosy face appeared in the aperture.

The boys stood at the end of the bed looking awkward and sheepish.

"Go on," she said impatiently; and she stamped her foot. "You must _say_ it now."

"But we don't know what to say. Is it a game like proverbs, or what?" asked Edmund.

Herrick sighed, and stepped out from behind the curtains. "I suppose I must esplain," she said, "but I thought everybody knowed that game; it's my most favourite play. This," she said, waving her hand dramatically, "is a _gloomy_ wood"--mere printers' ink can never depict the darkness and density of that wood as portrayed in Herrick's voice--"and you are a wandering prince."

"Which of us?" asked Edmund; "or are we both princes?"

"No, there can't be two, there can only be one. You'd better be him," she said, pointing to Montagu, "you're the biggest, and the littler one can be his servant."

"A varlet," Montagu, who was just then much under the influence of Sir Walter Scott, suggested helpfully.

"A Scotch varlet, mind," Edmund stipulated.

"And presently you see," continued the little girl as though there had been no interruption of any kind, "a most frowning sort of castle, but just as you're wondering what you'll do there appears at the window----"

"Castles haven't got windows," Edmund objected, "only kind of slits."

"This castle has a casement," Herrick responded with dignity. "Don't interrupt--and the curtains are drawn, but pesenly they are drawn back, and then you see _the_ most beautiful princess you ever dreamed of----"

"And then?" asked Montagu.

"Why, you go down on your knees, of course, and say so. Now, let's begin; you do need such a lot of esplanation."

The princess retired behind her curtains; the prince and the varlet, who manifested an unseemly inclination to giggle, marched about the room.

"By my halidome!" exclaimed the prince, who had determined to play the part after the fashion of his then favourite characters, "this place is stoutly fortified."

"Will we win through, think ye?" asked the varlet familiarly.

"Hush!" said a voice from behind the curtains.

They were parted. First the ravishingly lovely countenance (it really was an adorably pretty little face, intensely solemn and earnest) appeared, then more of the princess, till she stood revealed in short embroidered muslin frock and a blue sash.

Flump! Prince and varlet went down on their knees.

"What light from yonder window breaks?" exclaimed the prince, who had been doing "Romeo and Juliet" at school, and thought the quotation appropriate.

"An' wha'll yon lassie be, prince?" asked the varlet.

"I," said the princess slowly and solemnly, "_I_ am the Princess Hildegarde----"

"Losh me!" interjected the varlet.

"Silence, dog!" said the prince severely. "How came you here, fair lady?"

"I am imprisoned in this dreadful castle," the princess continued plaintively, "by a wicked baron, an enemy of my kingly father."

"Where is the baron, lady? That we may slay him!" valiantly exclaimed the prince.

"Is your faither deed?" further inquired the varlet, who really was shockingly familiar.

"He died"--here the princess faltered and looked almost as though she might weep at any moment--"while I was yet a babe, nigh upon forty years ago."

"That's a long time," murmured the prince thoughtfully.

"It is," the princess agreed, "and meanwhile my evil cousin has usurped the throne---- Now let us do it all over again." Here she spoke in a perfectly natural voice. "Perhaps you'll be a bit better this time. You ought to be much more surprised when I first appear, you ought to be struck dumb with amazement and delight, and then say all sorts of beautiful things. You should see my daddie do it."

"No, no," protested the varlet, as he arose and rubbed his knees, "we've got to find that old baron first and kill him. Wouldn't you like to be the baron now for a change?"

"Certainly not," said the princess with great dignity. "I'm only the princess always; we never have killings or horrid things of that sort. Are you ready?"

"Wouldn't you like to see the garden?" Montagu suggested; "it's very very pretty."

"I've seen plenty of gardens, thank you. This town is all over gardens. Are you ready?"

The princess was once more shrouded by her curtains. Edmund looked despairingly at Montagu.

"Shall we show her our secret place?" he whispered. "We simply can't play that silly old game all over again."

"She's got such a smart frock on," Montagu objected. "Suppose she got dirty."

"What secret place?" asked the princess, emerging from behind the curtains.

"It's a wee tunnel, and you go up it and come out on the roof, but you'd spoil your dress. Are you going to a party, that you're so fine?"

"I'm not fine," the princess cried indignantly. "It's just an or'nary dress; it'll wash. _Do_ show me the secret place."

"Will you promise not to play princess when we get there?" Edmund demanded.

"Not if you don't like it," she answered, looking very surprised; "but it's such a lovely game."

"Hush! they're calling us," Montagu exclaimed; "we must go down."

"But the secret place," cried Herrick. "I must see the secret place."

"You can't now; we must go. Next time, perhaps. All right, Guardie, we're coming. Here, you'd better let me carry you, the stairs are awfully steep. Bring her coat and things, Edmund."

This time the princess consented, and Montagu staggered downstairs bearing this precious and, for him, exceedingly heavy burden.

"What have you been doing, children?" Mrs. Wycherly asked.

"I didn't want to go in the garden," Herrick said as if that explained everything. "So we went upstairs and there was a lovely bed and we played princess, but they're not good. They didn't do it really well. You and daddie are much better."

Mrs. Wycherly looked across at her husband and laughed. "One needs educating up to that game," she said. "I daresay Edmund and Montagu will play it very well when they've got little girls of their own."

"They didn't seem to 'preciate me much," the child said sadly, "but," tolerantly, "they did their best. I like the big one, he's more respectful."

When their visitors had gone, Edmund sought Mr. Wycherly and climbed upon his knee.

"Funny little kid, wasn't she?" he said.

"She is a remarkably beautiful child."

"Yes, she is nice to look at; all that hair's so jolly. We were very good to her, Guardie, really; we did everything she asked us once--but we really couldn't do it all over again."

"Do what all over again?"

"Oh, be princes and admire her, and rubbish. She wouldn't let us kill the wicked baron or anything really jolly like that."

"You've had very little to do with girls, ever," Mr. Wycherly said thoughtfully. "It is rather a pity. I sometimes wish we knew some nice little girls for you to play with. They have, I expect, a refining influence."

"I don't want any refining influences if it's princesses and that sort of thing. I couldn't go on doing it to please anybody."

"She's only a baby, Edmund. You liked all sorts of queer games when you were very little. I'm sure I'd be quite willing to play princes or anything else to please the young lady."

"And go down on your knees?"

"Certainly," said Mr. Wycherly, who, however, looked rather startled, "if it gave her pleasure."

"I suppose we gave her pleasure," Edmund grumbled, "but she didn't seem over-pleased, somehow. I can't think _what_ she wanted, really."

"Perhaps she didn't know herself."

"Oh, yes, she did, for she was so sure we were doing it wrong."

"Perhaps," suggested Mr. Wycherly, with unconscious irony, "it is a better game for two."

"Well, you won't catch Montagu and me playing that game anyhow."

"Who knows--some day," said Mr. Wycherly.

*CHAPTER IV*

*THE BEGGAR MAID*

"Who loves me? dearest father, mother sweet,
I speak the names out sometimes by myself,
And make the silence shiver. They sound strange,
As Hindostani to an Ind-born man
Accustomed many years to English speech;
Or lovely poet-words grown obsolete,
Which will not leave off singing."
E. B. BROWNING.

That evening, after the princess and her parents had gone, Mrs. Dew asked Mr. Wycherly if she might "pop out" for an hour or so before supper just to run home and see that all was well.

Mrs. Dew always "popped," and according to herself, invariably ran, though such modes of progression seemed hardly in keeping with her stout, comfortable figure.

Before she left, she warned the boys to listen for knocks and rings during her absence--"though 'tisn't likely," she said, "as anyone'll come to the side-door; the tradespeople's all been."

Mr. Wycherly was shut in his study and the boys were preparing to go out into the garden where they assuredly would hear no knocks or rings, when there came a faint and timid rap at the side-door.

Edmund rushed to open it, and there stood a little girl of about twelve, who asked in a modest whisper: "Please, sir, can I see my aunt a minute?"

"Is Mrs. Dew your aunt?" Edmund demanded.

"Yes, sir, please, sir. Can I see her?"

"She's just gone out, not five minutes ago."

"Oh dear," sighed the little girl, "then I must have missed her."

"Was she going to see you, do you think?" Edmund asked. He always took the deepest interest in his fellow creatures.

"I expect so, but there's so many ways one can come. I shall be certain to miss her again going back and then----"

"And then," Edmund repeated.

"She'll be cross with me," the little girl replied, and smiled at Edmund.

Edmund smiled back and a friendly, confidential spirit was at once established.

They looked at each other in silence for a minute.

The visitor was dressed in a brown stuff frock of some stiff, unyielding woolen material. She wore a buff coloured cape reaching to the waist and a hat of black straw, trimmed with a brown ribbon, of that inverted-pie-dish shape seemingly peculiar to female orphans educated in charitable institutions, for no other mortal ever wears such an one.

The pale face under the shadow of the inverted pie-dish was odd and arresting. The eyes, long-lashed and brilliant, were really brown eyes, almost the colour of old, dark sherry; deep-set under delicately pencilled, very black eyebrows. Her mouth was rather large with well-cut full red lips and strong even white teeth; but her face was painfully thin, the cheeks so hollow and the chin so sharp that her eyes dominated everything, were out of proportion, and imparted to the beholder an uncomfortable sense of tragedy and gloom almost painful--until she smiled. Then the slumbering fire in the great eyes was quenched and they looked peaceful and pleasant as clear brown water under sunshine in a Devonshire trout stream.

"Hadn't you better come in and wait for your aunt?" Edmund suggested. "If you go back now you're certain to miss her."

"May I?" asked the little girl, smiling all over her face. "May I? I hope aunt won't mind."

"Come in," said Edmund, and shut the door.

The side-door opened straight into the scullery; then came the kitchen, large, orderly, and comfortable; opening out of that was a housekeeper's room not yet completely furnished. Edmund led his guest through these apartments and across a narrow passage to the dining-room where Montagu was sitting on the floor fastening on his pads.

"Here's Mrs. Dew's niece!" Edmund announced. "This is Montagu," he continued. "What's your name? We can't call you Mrs. Dew's niece all the time."

Montagu arose from the floor and shook hands in solemn silence after the manner of boys.

"My name's Jane-Anne, please, sir," said the little girl.

"My name's Edmund, please, miss," that youth remarked, grinning broadly.

Jane-Anne looked surprised. She saw nothing unusual in her mode of address.

For a minute the three stood and stared at each other.

"Would you like," Edmund asked in tones of honeyed politeness, "to see me bowl to him? I was just going to when you came."

"Please, sir," said Jane-Anne with commendable alacrity, "I should like it very much."

"Perhaps," Montagu suggested, though not over hopefully, "you'd like to field."

"Field," repeated Jane-Anne; "what's that?"

"Run after the ball when he hits it, and throw it back to me," Edmund explained.

"Oh, I could do that--do let me--it would be lovelly."

"Oh, you shall field as much as you like," Edmund promised graciously, and they all went into the garden.

Jane-Anne took off her hat and cape and hung them on the roller. It was then to be seen that her little nose was very straight and almost in a line with her forehead; no "dint," as Edmund called it, between the eyes. And her hair, parted in the centre from her brow to the nape of her neck, was black, immensely long and thick, and tightly plaited in two big pig-tails, each tied with a crumpled bit of brown ribbon.

Jane-Anne could run very fast and was quite a fair catch, but she could not throw, as Montagu put it, "a hang" except in directions wholly undesirable. She very nearly flung one ball through Mr. Wycherly's study window in her endeavours to send it to Edmund bowling at the other end of the lawn. So it was settled that she must roll the ball along the grass, which she did with fair precision.

The grass was wet and spongy after heavy rain that morning. Jane-Anne's boots were heavy and clumsy, and when she slid, as she often did, she peeled the grass right off.

"I say," Montagu exclaimed, "you're making a frightful mess of the grass. I think you'd better stop fielding."

"I'll take them off," Jane-Anne exclaimed eagerly. "I can run much faster in my stockings."

This she did, regardless of the damp and unhindered by either of the boys, who thought it was very "sporting" of her.

"This afternoon," said Montagu, while she was unlacing them, "we had a little girl who insisted on playing at being a princess, and when you came I was afraid you'd want to play something of that sort too; perhaps the beggar maid, for a change."

"I shouldn't ever want to _play_ that," she said very low, and to his dismay he noticed that her mouth drooped at the corners and her eyes were full of tears. She stooped her head over the boot she was unlacing, but Montagu had seen her face.

"Oh, don't," he exclaimed. "Whatever is the matter? I was only in fun and you know, in the story--it's a poem--I read it this very afternoon--the beggar maid became the Queen."

"_Did_ she?" cried Jane-Anne. "Are you sure? How lovelly! I'd like to play at being a princess," she added wistfully. "It's not much fun to play what you are already. You see I am a sort of beggar maid."

"Oh, nonsense," said Montagu, "you're not in rags, your clothes look very strong and comfortable."

"They're strong, but they're not at all comfortable, they're so stiff"; and Jane-Anne rose lightly to her feet holding her arms out straight.

The brown garment was made after a fashion of many years ago--the sleeves and body tight and skimpy and narrow-chested; the skirt unnecessarily full and heavy.

"I think you're rather like Mrs. Noah," said Edmund, "only you've more hair and petticoats."

Jane-Anne dropped her arms, stooped, and picked up the boots. "Aren't they frightful?" she said. "That's the asylum. We all have to wear them." Whereupon she cast the boots violently away from her and they bounded into the midst of a herbaceous border.

"Now," she said, with a little dancing movement indicative of relief, "you'll see that I can run."

"What was that you said about an asylum?" Edmund asked suspiciously. "I thought only mad people went to asylums."

"It's the Bainbridge Asylum for female orphans," Jane-Anne explained. "I'm female and I'm an orphan, and I wish I wasn't. I'm at school there and I hate it. But I'm generally ill, so I have to go to the hospital, and there it's lovelly."

"Why are you ill?" asked Edmund.

"It's so cold. If I go on being ill any more," she added hopefully, "they won't keep me. It's because I'm an orphan I have to go--it makes it easier for aunt."

"But we're orphans too and we don't go to asylums," Edmund objected.

"Ah," said Jane-Anne, "you're rich, you see."

"Indeed we're not," said Montagu. "We're very poor really; Aunt Esperance said so."

"Poor!" echoed Jane-Anne scornfully, "and live in that beautiful house and have Aunt Martha for a servant. Oh, no, you can't be poor--not really."

"You see, there's Guardie, he takes care of us," Montagu explained, "but we're really orphans, too, you know."

"Are you? I'm so sorry," and she looked it.

"Oh, you needn't be a bit sorry for us. We're very jolly, thank you," and Edmund spoke in rather an offended tone. Pity was the last thing he expected or desired.

"I beg your pardon," she said quickly. "I know it's quite different for you; you're gentry, you see."

The boys glanced at one another and were horribly uncomfortable. In some queer, subconscious way they felt that they had unaccountably and unintentionally been "snobby" to Jane-Anne.

"Come on," said Edmund, "we're wasting time."

The game was keen and exciting. Jane-Anne flew about on her slender stockinged feet, and in spite of the stiff brown dress, there was something singularly fleet and graceful in her movements.

The pleasant pinky light had already changed to grey when from the house there came the sound of a hand-bell rung vigorously.

"Mercy!" exclaimed Edmund, "that's for us to wash. Mrs. Dew must be home and it's nearly supper-time."

Montagu was already half-way to the house when Jane-Anne caught Edmund by the arm, exclaiming, "Oh, let me get my boots. Don't go without me, and don't say I took them off. I don't know what Aunt'd say. I'm sure she'll think it forward of me to play with you."

"Rubbish," said Edmund. "Hurry up. We asked you, and I hope you'll come often. You'd learn to chuck up a ball in time, and your running's simply ripping."

"Can the princess one throw balls?" Jane-Anne asked as she laced a boot at lightning speed.

"I don't know. I shouldn't think so; she's a very little kid, you know."

"I should like to see her; is she like a princess, really?"

"Well, she is rather. She has a demandly sort of way as if she expected everybody to do as she likes. You could see her if you came to-morrow morning. They're coming then, I know."

"I'd love to, but what would aunt say? I'm certain she wouldn't let me; not in the morning when she's so busy."

"You come to the front door and I'll let you in myself and take you up to the attic. She's certain to want to go back there. She doesn't seem to care for gardens."

"Oh, I do," cried Jane-Anne; "gardens are lovelly; but I'll come," she added excitedly. "I'll wait across the road, then you can see me from the window and let me in. Mind you don't forget."

They ran back to the house and Edmund escorted Jane-Anne as far as the kitchen, where Mrs. Dew was standing at the fireplace dishing up.

"Jane-Anne came to see you, Mrs. Dew," Edmund announced loudly from the doorway, "but you'd just gone, so we asked her in to wait till you came back."

Mrs. Dew turned hastily and beheld her niece standing just behind her.

"But I've been back over an hour," Mrs. Dew exclaimed. "Wherever have you been since, Jane-Anne?"

"We asked her to play cricket with us," Edmund explained. "We never heard you come in. Good-bye, Jane-Anne, I must go and wash."

Wagging his curly head meaningly in token of the assignation for the morrow, Edmund departed and Jane-Anne was left face to face with her aunt.

"Well!" that good woman ejaculated. "You've given me a pretty turn. I couldn't think where you was gone; evening and all, and then to think you've been all this time playing with the young gentlemen like one of theirselves, and me never so much as dreaming where you was. What possessed you to come at all, Jane-Anne?"

"I was lonely, Aunt Martha, I wanted to see you."

"You might have seen me over an hour ago if you'd a' chose. Well, now you must run back home before it gets dark. I can't let you wait for me to take you, there's all them dinner things to wash up. How hot you are child! Mind you don't catch cold, and school beginning next week."

Jane-Anne looked wistfully at the sizzling cutlets in the frying-pan. She had started off before her tea and was very hungry. Her aunt had turned again to the range and was absorbed in lifting her cutlets out one by one and setting them to drain on a dish covered with white paper. As she carefully placed the last one, she turned and saw the flushed, wistful little face under the shadow of the inverted pie-dish.

"There, child," she said impatiently, "don't dawdle, it's late enough as it is, and Miss Morecraft 'll be in a fine taking where you can have got to."

"Good-night, Aunt Martha," Jane-Anne said obediently, and held up her face to be kissed.

Mrs. Dew stooped and kissed the child with great kindness and felt in the pocket of her skirt. "You buy a cake for your supper," she said, pressing a penny into Jane-Anne's hand, "on your way back. I can't give you anything here for the food's not mine, and to take my employer's victuals is what I never have done nor never will."

Jane-Anne flung her arms round her aunt's neck. "I do love you, Aunt Martha," she whispered chokily.

"There, there, do get home, and remember that if so be as I'm out when you call, you're to go away again and not come in as bold as brass as if you was a friend of the family--playing with the young gentlemen and all. Folks ought to keep to their proper stations."

"But he asked me to come and play," Jane-Anne expostulated.

"Law bless you, Master Edmund'd ask in a tramp off the road, he's that full of caddle. Now look sharp, child, and get home."

Jane-Anne let herself out at the side-door and went through under the archway into the street. It was quite deserted, and as she passed the dining-room window she stopped, and pressing her face against the glass, looked in.

The electric light above the table had a rose-coloured shade and filled the room with a warm, soft light. A bright fire was burning on the hearth, for the evenings were still cold and a shrewd wind blew down the empty street. To Jane-Anne, shivering now after being much too hot, the room looked inexpressibly comfortable and cheery.

Mr. Wycherly, his white hair shining with a silvery radiance, was standing with Montagu, newly promoted to a dinner-jacket on the hearth-rug. His hand was on the boy's shoulder, and he smiled down at him, for Montagu was talking eagerly. There was evidently such perfect confidence and affection between what Jane-Anne called "the beautiful old gentleman" and the boy for whom she had just been fielding, that she felt a passionate desire to be there too. Surely anyone who looked so gracious and benign would have a kindly word for her. Should she rap at the window and attract their attention? Somehow she was certain that neither of them would be cross. Her eyes filled with tears, and the figures standing on the hearth-rug became blurred and indistinct, but she saw her aunt come in and cross towards the window to pull down the blind. Jane-Anne darted away, the big tears chasing each other down her cheeks.

"I wish I was that kind of orphan!" sobbed Jane-Anne.

*CHAPTER V*

*THEIR MEETING*

"For may not a person be only five,
And yet have the neatest of taste alive?
As a matter of fact, this one has views
Of the strictest sort as to frocks and shoes."
AUSTIN DOBSON.

Little Herrick had no companions of her own age except for an occasional visit to cousins. Therefore did she invent comrades for herself and sternly impose them upon her family.

There was "Umpy dear" who, as his name suggested, was a meek, inefficient sort of person, often in trouble of various kinds, but always entirely amiable and desirous of pleasing. Quite other was "Mr. Woolykneeze," a stern, characterful personality who was quoted as an authority on all questions of manners and deportment. Even Janet, the commonsensical, trembled before Mr. Woolykneeze. One day at tea, having toothache, she had ventured to leave a piece of crust upon her plate, when Herrick remarked it and said sternly, "Mr. Woolykneeze thinks it's very impolite to leave bits, 'specially crusts," and poor Janet was fain to soak the crust in her tea and mumble it that way rather than offend this mysterious and invisible censor.

When asked the age of "Umpy dear," Herrick always persisted that he was "three months and one day." He never grew any older and his social solecisms were surely excusable in one of such tender age. "Mrs. Miff" was "Umpy dear's" mother, and her character was believed to have been founded on that of a charwoman who occasionally came to the house. Like her offspring she was meek and rather feckless, frequently arousing the wrath of Mr. Woolykneeze by her untidy and careless habits.

No one knew whence Herrick got the names or how she divined their various characters, but the people were there and had come to stay, and her family had to put up with them.

Her visit to Oxford opened up whole vistas of new possibilities. Here were two real boys with whom she had been allowed to play. It is true that they did not fall into her scheme with that instant understanding and obedience to which she was accustomed from her parents, but still they played after a fashion, a new and piquant fashion, and Herrick went back to the King's Arms after her visit to Holywell chattering incessantly of "Monkagu" and "Emmund," and demanding an instant return to their society. She wept bitterly when she found she could not go back that night, and declared that Mr. Woolykneeze and Umpy dear were equally upset. Her father suggested that these gentlemen might stroll round by themselves, when Herrick, regarding him with tearful astonishment, sobbed out: "They'd never be so unkind as to go wivout me. Besides, Umpy dear might spill something on your uncle's best carpet. Can't _I_ take them?"

"Not to-night, I fear."

"Why?"

"Because, you see, we've been already; it would be troublesome to go twice."

"Why would it be troublesome? I want to play with those little boys again."

"They're not very little boys, you know. They're a great deal bigger than you are. Perhaps they don't care to play with little girls."

At this Herrick opened her tearful eyes wide, repeating in astonishment, "Not care to play wiv _me_? Why not?"

"Well, you see, boys don't always care for the same games that girls like."

"But they're nice boys."

"I'm glad to hear it; still, you know, even nice boys don't always care to play with little girls."

Herrick sighed deeply. It was a horrid suggestion, the more so that she felt secretly assured that the princess game had not been a wild success.

"I want to see the varlet again," she persisted.

"Which is the varlet?"

"The littler one. I do want him to play wiv me."

"Perhaps he will to-morrow."

"D'rectly after breakfas', mind; you promise."