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."

William Wycherly promised, and Herrick went to bed to dream that

"Emmund" and "Monkagu" were walking down Holywell arm-in-arm with Umpy

dear and Mr. Woolykneeze, and that they all four called at the hotel to

take her for a walk in St. John's Gardens.

Next morning Herrick woke very early. Janet, her Scottish nurse, was

having a fortnight's holiday, therefore at that time her mother was her

sole guardian and attendant. Her bed was in a little dressing-room off

that of her mother, the door between the two rooms being left open.

For a little while Herrick was content to sit up and wonder at the

floors of the King's Arms Hotel, which are not as ordinary floors, but

slope up and down in all sorts of unexpected directions. But she soon

got tired of this, and so effectually roused her devoted parents that

the three of them were down in the coffee-room and had finished

breakfast by half-past eight.

"Now let us go and see your uncle, daddie dear," Herrick suggested as

soon as she was lifted down from her chair. It seemed so extraordinary

to her that anyone as old as her father should have an uncle, and she

never failed to lay great stress upon the pronoun.

"We can't possibly invade them so early as this," Margaret said firmly;

"they're probably not downstairs yet."

"Umpy dear thinks they're up and finished breakfast," Herrick remarked

in a detached, impersonal tone, "_and_ waiting for me."

"Well, I must beg to differ from Umpy dear. We said we'd call about ten,

and it won't be ten for an hour and a half yet. I must write some

letters, and you must amuse yourself somehow while I do it. What toys

will you have?"

"I'll look out of the window, sank you," Herrick remarked with dignity,

and climbed upon a chair that she might see over the wire blind.

Her mother gave one amused glance at the small offended back turned

towards her and went upstairs to get her writing-case.

William Wycherly, seeing his daughter apparently engrossed in her

inspection of the street, strolled to the bureau to look up trains, for

they were to leave that afternoon.

No sooner was he out of sight than Herrick, muttering something to the

effect that "Mr. Woolykneeze _knows_ they're waiting," scrambled down

from the chair and tip-toed out to the hall and thence into the street.

No one saw her, for none of the other sojourners at the King's Arms were

down, and at that moment there was not even a waiter in the hall.

It was a perfect April morning. The sun shone clear and warm, and a

shy, caressing wind lifted Herrick's curls and turned them to a haze of

golden floss as she stepped daintily to the pavement and looked up

street and down street carefully. Then, as fast as her sturdy legs

would carry her, she ran till she reached Mr. Wycherly's gabled house.

But there she was met by a difficulty, for she could reach neither

knocker nor bell. For a moment she stood undecided in the doorway, but

she was not lacking in resource. She couldn't quite see into the

windows but she could reach them with her hand. She selected that on

the left-hand side of the door and tapped on the glass. No response;

evidently there was no one in that room.

She tried the other. Still no one came to see who was there.

A passing boy, who noted her efforts, inquired good-naturedly: "Want to

get in, missie?"

"Please! Would you ring for me?" she asked, smiling up at him in

bewitching fashion; "there doesn't seem to be anybody in those rooms."

The boy rang loudly, knocked like a postman, and went up the street,

where he waited a few doors off to see what happened.

The door was opened.

Mrs. Dew looked down at this hatless, golden-haired person in an

elaborate blue linen smock the colour of her eyes, and recognised

yesterday's visitor.

"Come in, my dear," she said hospitably. "They're none of 'em down yet,

but I can hear the young gentlemen hollerin' and rampagin', so they

won't be long----" "Parents want to get her out of the way for a bit, I

expect," she thought to herself, "her mamma must get pretty tired of it

without no nurse."

Herrick followed Mrs. Dew into the dining-room, where breakfast was

laid. "One minute, my dear," said that good woman, "I must just pop

back to my bacon and eggs, then I'll come and see to you."

But Herrick had not come to see Mrs. Dew. No sooner was she left alone

than she sought the steep, narrow staircase and began to climb upstairs,

whispering as she went, "You'd better take my hand, Umpy dear."

Two doors on the landing were open. The bathroom faced her, empty, and

very wet. She walked straight through the second open door on the other

side of the landing and came upon Montagu brushing his hair at the glass

while Edmund, still in his shirt-sleeves, was practising a handspring on

the end of his bed.

Montagu saw her reflected in the mirror and in speechless astonishment

watched her as she paused well inside the doorway, announcing genially,

"We've all three come."

Edmund's feet dropped to the floor with a flump.

"Mercy goodness!" Montagu ejaculated, and dashed for the door that led

into Mr. Wycherly's room. On this he thumped loudly; without waiting

for permission to enter, he opened it just wide enough to thrust in his

head, and repeated, "They've all three come," in a penetrating whisper.

Mr. Wycherly, who was shaving, dropped his razor and turned a soapy and

astonished countenance towards Montagu, exclaiming, "What! al----!" when

he hastily changed his remark to: "They've come to breakfast with us,

have they? How exceedingly kind and friendly; run down at once and ask

Mrs. Dew to lay three more places."

Herrick staring at Edmund, heard this and said slowly: "They don't

generally lay for them."

"What?" cried Edmund, immensely interested. "Don't you have plates and

knives and things?"

"_I_ do," said Herrick; "at least not knives 'cept a silver one, but

they never do. They _will_ be pleased."

"But do you mean to tell me," Edmund exclaimed, appalled at the

eccentricity of the Wycherly _menage_ as revealed by their daughter,

"that they eat things right off the cloth? Whatever do they do when

there's gravy?"

"They never has gravy, poor dears," said Herrick sadly.

Edmund sighed. As old Elsa would have said, it was "ayont him"; and

they both looked so nice too. It was impossible to imagine Mr. and Mrs.

Wycherly gnawing cutlets without so much as a plate between them. He

got into his waistcoat and jacket in thoughtful silence. Montagu, who

had not paid any attention to these astonishing revelations, being

filled with hospitable concern as to whether there would be sufficient

bacon and eggs for three extra persons, gave his hair one final thump

with the brush and prepared to go downstairs.

"Stop!" cried Edmund; "you haven't said your prayers; hurry up!" Both

boys knelt down by the bed, side by side, while Herrick watched their

bowed heads with solemn interest.

"Why don't you begin?" she asked impatiently after a minute's silence.

"I've _done_," Edmund announced cheerfully, arising from his knees, when

Montagu followed suit and rushed downstairs.

"But you didn't say anything."

"We don't say prayers out loud. It's only very little children say them

out loud."

"Oh!" she said, as though suddenly enlightened. "Umpy dear says his

very loud, but Mr. Woolykneeze looks into his hat like a grown-up

genpleman; you can't hear a fing."

"But," Edmund objected, "one hasn't always got a hat in the morning,"

and opening Mr. Wycherly's door a very little, he called through: "I

say, Guardie, do you always say your prayers into a hat?"

"Really, Edmund," said poor Mr. Wycherly, much perturbed by this second

interruption, "I do so dislike doors being opened while I am shaving,

especially when as in this instance----"

Edmund banged the door.

"I'm sure he doesn't," he said confidently. "He can't, for his hat's

downstairs. P'raps that Mr. What's-is-name you mentioned has a special

kind."

"Mr. Woolykneeze has hundreds of hats," Herrick announced magnificently.

"What a lot of room they must take up," said Edmund, much impressed.

"They do," said Herrick, "rooms and rooms."

"Is yon Mr. Woolykneeze a relation?" Edmund asked.

Herrick looked thoughtful. "Not exactly," she said slowly, "but he's a

dear fend."

"How many pairs of trousers has he?"

Here was a poser. Herrick was not yet very familiar with the science of

numbers. "I've not seen them all," she said cautiously; "he wears

different ones every day. Let's come downstairs," she added quickly

lest he should ask more inconvenient questions. "You may show me the

garden till bretfus is ready if you like."

By the time Mr. Wycherly came down, six places were laid for breakfast

and Mrs. Dew had cooked three extra portions of bacon and eggs. She

rang the bell loudly and the boys with little Herrick came in from the

garden.

"Perhaps you'd better run along to the King's Arms, Edmund, and tell my

nephew and his wife that breakfast is ready," said Mr. Wycherly. "I

thought, my dear," he added, turning towards Herrick, "that you said

your father and mother had come. I hope they haven't gone away in

despair because none of us were down."

Herrick looked up at him with candid, forget-me-not blue eyes.

"No," she said gravely, "I never said they'd come for they didn't."

"But you did!" Montagu exclaimed. "You said, 'We've all three come'

when you first came upstairs."

"So we have," she said. "Mr. Woolykneeze and Umpy dear and me; not

mummy and daddie. I 'spect this is him now," as a loud knock and ring

came at the front door.

And sure enough it was William Wycherly, so relieved to see his daughter

safe that he forgot altogether to scold her for running away.

Margaret, thinking her husband was in charge of Herrick, had not hurried

down and he, returning to the empty coffee-room, concluded that Herrick

had been fetched upstairs by her mother. It was not till Margaret came

down that they discovered she had apparently vanished into space.

William instantly fell into a panic and was for summoning a detective at

once, when Margaret calmly interposed with the suggestion that he should

first look for his daughter in his uncle's house. After considerable

explanation which included the important personalities of Mr.

Woolykneeze and Umpy dear, William was fain to go back to the King's

Arms without his daughter, and Herrick sat at Mr. Wycherly's right hand,

raised high in her chair upon a dictionary and Cruden's Concordance, and

had breakfast all over again "wivout a bib" as she joyfully announced.

The blue smock also bore testimony to that fact when the meal was over.

The extra bacon and eggs were not wasted; Montagu and Edmund consumed

the lot.

By the time breakfast was over it was nearly ten o'clock, and Edmund

went to the front door to look for Jane-Anne. Sure enough she was there

waiting in a doorway just down the street. Jane-Anne saw him and came

out from her doorway, advancing rather timidly.

"Where's Aunt Martha?" she whispered.

"Upstairs, making beds," Edmund answered, "so we can't go to the attics,

but you can come into the garden. There's only one room looks out into

the garden and that's Guardie's study. He's gone there now so Mrs. Dew

won't be in that."

"Are you sure?" Jane-Anne whispered again. "She'd be awfully vexed if

she saw me."

"Come on. That kid is here and she can't stop long for we're all going

out on the river. Hurry up if you really want to see her."

Jane-Anne came in sideways, as though by that means she made herself

less conspicuous.

Herrick and Montagu were standing on the lawn under an apple tree,

looking at some trumpet daffodils that were growing at its root.

Herrick, very gently, was lifting each yellow bell to look inside it.

"Fairies live in these," she was saying, "but it's such a beautiful

morning, I 'spect they've all flown away. You have to be very early to

catch a fairy. Who's that with Edmund and what's she come for?"

"To see you, I think," Montagu replied. "Jane-Anne's her name and she's

Mrs. Dew's niece."

Jane-Anne looked more haggard than ever this morning; pale to

ghastliness with dark shadows under her great eyes, she was singularly

unattractive. Little Herrick felt both puzzled and repelled, but

Margaret's teaching held good and the child walked forward holding out

her hand with a little gracious air that was very captivating.

"How do you do?" said Herrick.

To her surprise, this strange-looking person dropped on one knee before

her and taking the eggy little hand in both her own, kissed it.

"You're quite right," Jane-Anne remarked to Montagu over her shoulder,

"she is like a princess."

"You may kiss me if you like," said Herrick graciously.

"If you please, miss, I'd rather you'd kiss me if you will," said

Jane-Anne humbly. "I'd like to think anything so pretty as you had

kissed me."

There was something so wistful and pathetic in the pale face that gazed

so longingly into her own that little Herrick's warm heart was touched

and she flung her arms round Jane-Anne's neck and kissed her heartily.

"Thank you," said Jane-Anne as she rose up to her feet. "I shall never

forget it, never."

"Now I," interposed Edmund, who had looked on with astounded

disapprobation at this display of sentiment, "I should loathe and

abominate anyone who kissed me and I should try to forget it as soon as

ever I could."

"So should I," Montagu agreed, "rather--but I suppose girls are

different."

"Course they are," Herrick chimed in; "quite different and much better

and more precious. Daddie says so."

This point of view did not appeal to the boys.

"I don't know about 'precious,'" Edmund said scornfully. "It depends

what you mean by precious."

"_I'm_ precious," Herrick explained, "very, very precious. That's why

they were so afraid they'd lost me this morning, 'cause I'm so

precious."

"I'm not," said Jane-Anne. "Female orphans never are so far as I can

make out, but I'd like to be. Oh, it would be lovelly!"

Herrick had been staring hard at Jane-Anne for some minutes and at last

could contain herself no longer.

"Why," she demanded, "do you wear such a funny hat? Do you like it?"

"Why d'you wear no hat at all?" Montagu interposed, vaguely aware that

Herrick's question was not tactful.

"I wear a bonnet generally," Herrick remarked with dignity, "but I came

out without it this morning 'cause they were in such a hurry. D'you

like my smock?" she asked, turning to Jane-Anne. "Mummy made it."

"I like everything about you," Jane-Anne answered, with commendable

enthusiasm. "I think you're a dear darling, and I hate all my clothes,

but I can't go about without any because people would stare, beside it's

generally too cold." And though the sun was shining hot on the lawn,

Jane-Anne shivered.

Montagu looked at his watch.

"We'll have to go and get ready," he said. "We're all going on the river

this morning--they're going away this afternoon--and I promised to take

her back to the hotel at half-past ten to have her face washed. I wish

you were coming too," he added kindly, "but it's not our party."

"Good-bye, little girl," said Herrick, "and I hope you'll soon have a

nicer hat, a really pretty one." And again Herrick kissed Jane-Anne.

"I'll let you out at the garden door," said Edmund, "then we shan't run

into Mrs. Dew."

Quite silently Jane-Anne followed him to the end of the garden where

there was a door in the wall. It was seldom used and the key was stiff,

but by great efforts with both hands, Edmund managed to turn it.

"Come again, soon," he said hospitably, "and we'll have some more

cricket."

Jane-Anne murmured something unintelligible and passed out with bent

head, the pie-dish effectually concealing her face. Edmund locked the

door behind her and ran back to the house.

Outside the garden, in Saville Road, it was very quiet. It is true

there was a distant rumble of carts from Holywell and a thrush was

singing in one of Mr. Wycherly's apple-trees, but of human kind there

wasn't a sign.

Jane-Anne went down on her knees, her shoulder pressed close against the

garden door.

"Dear God," she prayed, "I do so want to be precious too. Please let me

be precious to somebody. Please do."

*CHAPTER VI*

*MR. WYCHERLY ADDS TO HIS RESPONSIBILITIES*

"Some cheeses are made o' skim milk and some o' new milk, and it's no

matter what you call 'em, you may tell which is which by the look and

the smell." _Adam Bede_.

Next day Mrs. Methuen took the boys out on the river for the whole

afternoon. She invited Mr. Wycherly to go too, but the previous day had

been his first experience of his wards as oarsmen, and he came to the

conclusion that he preferred their society on land.

He was sitting at his writing-table in his study. The great oriel

window was open and he could see that there were already patches of pink

on the largest apple-tree, while the pear-trees had shed their snowy

blossoms and shone brilliantly green against the blue and cloudless sky.

It was a pleasant prospect from the study window: the long irregular

strip of garden, with smoothly shaven lawn in the centre and winding

paths among borders where vegetables, fruit and flowers grew side by

side in perfect amity.

The afternoon was singularly quiet, and, knowing Mr. Wycherly's habits,

one would have felt that here was an excellent opportunity for his great

work on the Nikomachean ethics which had been sadly neglected during the

last strenuous weeks. Yet he neither took up the pen nor did he open

any of the fat, calf-bound books piled one upon another at his elbow.

He sat very still, his long white hands resting idly on the arms of his

chair, his kind eyes dreamy, his whole attitude eloquent of contented

tranquillity.

Presently there came a modest tap at the study door, followed by the

entrance of Mrs. Dew with her small round tray, and on it a rather dirty

piece of paper which she presented to Mr. Wycherly with the

announcement: "A young person to see you, sir."

Mr. Wycherly, roused from his agreeable reverie, looked bewildered.

"A young person?" he repeated vaguely, "to see me. What sort of a young

person, Mrs. Dew?"

Mrs. Dew's face preserved the non-committal expression of one who has

seen service in really good families, as she replied: "A young woman,

sir, from the Registry Office, I should suppose."

Mr. Wycherly took the piece of paper off the tray and read as follows:

"_M. Fairfield exp.: general character six months twelve months plain

cooking age 23 very respectable._"

There were no stops.

He looked beseechingly at Mrs. Dew, but her eyes were bent upon the

carpet and she waited his pleasure a perfect monument of respectful

detachment. Poor Mr. Wycherly had forgotten all about his search for

the accomplished general. Somewhere in the back of his brain there

lurked the consciousness that Mrs. Dew was only a temporary blessing,

really there "to oblige Mrs. Methuen," till such time as a suitable and

permanent servant should be obtained; but she fitted into her niche so

perfectly, her sway was so benevolent, if a trifle despotic, that he

began to look upon her as part of the established order of things, and,

since his one visit to the High Class Registry Office, had made no

effort of any kind to find her successor.

"Couldn't you see her for me, Mrs. Dew?" he entreated almost abjectly.

"You could judge of her capabilities far better than I can."

Mrs. Dew raised her eyes and looked Mr. Wycherly full in the face,

shaking her head the while: "No, sir, I think not, sir; it would be more

satisfactory for all parties if you was to see the young person

yourself."

Mr. Wycherly sighed heavily. "Do you think she seems likely to be

suitable?"

Mrs. Dew's wholesome, good-natured face once more became sphinx-like.

"I really couldn't say, sir. The appearance of the young women of the

present day is often very much against them. We can only hope they're

better servants than they look. Shall I show her up here, sir?"

"Please, Mrs. Dew, but I do wish you could have interviewed her for

me--wait one moment. Could you kindly suggest some of the questions I

ought to ask her?"

Mr. Wycherly's voice betrayed his extreme perturbation and he swung

round in his revolving chair almost as though he had thoughts of laying

violent hands on Mrs. Dew to prevent her departure.

She paused on the threshold and an imaginative person might perhaps have

discovered a trace of pity in the glance she bent on Mr. Wycherly's

agitated figure.

"The usual questions, sir, will, I should think, be quite sufficient."

And she shut the door behind her.

"The usual questions."

But what on earth were the usual questions? Mr. Wycherly could only

think of those in the church Catechism. He picked up the dirty scrap of

paper and read it again. "Exp." conveyed nothing to his mind. They

were coming upstairs and he had no plan of campaign arranged. He felt

absolutely forlorn and helpless. Suppose the young person didn't go away

of her own accord? How could he ever suggest to her that the interview

was at an end? He found himself longing for the moral support of

Edmund, who at all events, never lacked the power of asking questions;

and no sort of young person, or, for the matter of that, old person

either, could inspire him with the unreasoning terror his guardian felt

at the prospect of the _tete-a-tete_ thus imminent.

Mrs. Dew opened the door.

"The young person," she announced, and her disapproving expression

changed to one of downright horror as Mr. Wycherly rose to his feet to

receive his visitor.

She was a short, stout young woman, dressed in a bright blue coat and

skirt of the shade known by drapers as "Royal." Her hat was large and

was trimmed with tumbled pink roses. Her hair was frizzy and flamboyant

and her boots creaked--Mr. Wycherly thought to himself--infernally.

"Pray be seated," he said courteously.

The young woman selected a chair as far off as possible and giggled

affably.

"I understand," he began in a faint voice, "that you think you would be

able to undertake the duties of--er--thorough general servant--that I

believe is the correct term?"

"I always 'ave been general," the young woman replied, "though I did

think of betterin' myself, but Mrs. Councer she said as yours was a

heasy place with no missus naggin' at you an' I thought it might suit me

so I come along to have a look at things. It's a largish 'ouse for one

but I suppose you don't 'ave much cookin' and waitin'."

"But there are three of us," Mr. Wycherly interposed eagerly. "I'm

afraid that you would find it too much. You are rather young to

undertake the entire management of this household. You see there would

be the housekeeping to do--ordering, books to pay and so on, as well as

the actual work."

"Oh, I could do all that," she replied confidently. "I'll do the

shoppin' meself. I likes a run out between my reg'lar times, an' I'd

see they didn't cheat you in the books, puttin' down things you've never

'ad."

Miss Fairfield smiled happily at Mr. Wycherly. She liked his looks. She

was sure he would be easy to live with and probably would be unaware of

the existence of the followers. In common with every woman ever brought

into personal relations with him, she was certain that he was in need of

protection from the others, and decided there and then that it was her

mission to see that he wasn't put upon by anybody else.

"When will you be requirin' my services?" she asked.

Mr. Wycherly gasped. "I should require to consider the question," he

said feebly, "and it is usual, is it not, to give some----"

"My last mistress'll give me a character. I was there six months and

she almost went down on 'er knees for me to stop; but I couldn't, it was

such an 'eavy place."

"Are you a good plain cook?" Mr. Wycherly asked, feeling here indeed was

a leading question; some of Lady Alicia's instructions were gradually

recurring to his mind. "Can you--er--do fish?"

"Fry fish, why bless you, sir, my last place was a fried-fish shop,

that's why I left. One gets tired of frying morning, noon and night. I

can do plain roast and boiled and milk puddin's an' that, but I don't

profess to do pastry."

"Thank you," said Mr. Wycherly, and paused. To get rid of her, he was on

the point of saying that he would consider her qualifications and let

her know his decision later, when his delicate sense of honour pointed

out that such a course would not be quite straightforward dealing. She

was a terrible young woman and his fastidious soul revolted from the

very thought of the fried-fish shop, but she was young and she was a

woman; it would not be fair to let her depart with the impression that

she was a likely applicant when nothing on earth could induce him to

employ her.

"I fear," he added gently, "that you are not quite experienced enough

for us here, and therefore I will not trouble your late mistress with

inquiries. I am sorry you should have had to come in vain--were you to

put any expense?"

The girl gave a short laugh. "I've only come about half a mile," she

said. "I'm sorry I don't suit you; I think I could be very 'appy in

your situation."

Poor Mr. Wycherly looked most unhappy. He rose and rang the bell,

saying:

"Mrs. Dew will show you the way out." He opened the door for her with

the gravest courtesy and she creaked downstairs, wondering why she had

not demanded at least "'arf a crownd" for expenses. "I'd 'a' got it

too," she thought to herself, "but it never entered me 'ead to say

nothin' to 'im but the plain truth an' 'im so civil and affable."

Mr. Wycherly went back to his chair and reached for a pamphlet dealing

with the philosophy of Eubulides, which he thought might be soothing,

but he had got no further than the statement that, "in Eubulides

positive faith was superseded by delight in his own subtlety," when

there came another knock at his door and again Mrs. Dew presented

herself.

"I beg your pardon, sir, for venturing to intrude upon you," Mrs. Dew

said respectfully, "but did you come to any arrangement with the young

person?"

Mr. Wycherly laid down Eubulides. "Oh, dear, no," he groaned, "she was

quite impossible. A most well-meaning girl, I am sure--but----"

"I feared so, sir, from her very flashy appearance, but one always hopes

they may be better than their looks. Being only temporary I should like

to know you'd found someone really suitable."

"Look here, Mrs. Dew," said Mr. Wycherly, suddenly taking heart of

grace. "Why should you be only temporary? Could you not settle down

with us? If you find the work too much when my wards are at home why

not get a young girl to help you?"

"You're very kind, sir," said Mrs. Dew, fingering her apron and looking

embarrassed, "but you see, I'm not without encumbrances. Husband I've

none, children I've none, but what I have got is a niece and my bits of

things. I'm bound to keep a little home for her in the holidays, that's

why I can't take a permanent situation. You see, no one wants a child

of twelve tacked on to a servant for weeks at a time."

"But listen, Mrs. Dew, there is the cottage--the little cottage off the

kitchen where your bedroom is now--why not bring your things and furnish

it and the housekeeper's room and there would be a home for your niece?"

Mrs. Dew turned very red. "It's most uncommon kind of you, sir," she

said, "but I shouldn't like to take advantage of you. You see, it's

just when the young gentlemen would be at home her holidays come, and

perhaps----"

"That, surely, would be the very time when she could be of most use to

you."

Mrs. Dew looked queerly at Mr. Wycherly, then, as though forcing herself

to speak against her will, she said slowly: "You see, sir, I must be

straightforward with you. If Jane-Anne was like some girls--like what I

was myself--I shouldn't 'esitate to accept your very kind offer, for it

would make a great difference to me. I hate choppin' and changin' and

if I may make so bold, sir, you need a staid person here to look after

things, but Jane-Anne's the sort of child what crops up continual. I

_couldn't_ promise for 'er as she'd keep 'erself to 'erself like she

ought. I'd do my best, sir, to keep her in our own part of the 'ouse,

but----"

Mrs. Dew paused and shook her head. Whenever she was very much in

earnest she dropped into the speech of her youth; the aitchless,

broad-vowelled talk of the Cotswold country whence she came.

"But, I shall like to see your niece about the house," said Mr.

Wycherly. "It will be pleasant to have a young girl growing up in our

midst, good for me and for the boys."

Again Mrs. Dew gave Mr. Wycherly that queer look, half-scornful,

half-admirative.

"You mustn't think, sir, that there's any real 'arm in Jane-Anne," she

said earnestly. "There's nothing of the minx about her, I will say that;

but--I don't know how to put it without being hard on the child, and yet

it wouldn't be fair to you, sir, to let her come without telling

you----"

Again Mrs. Dew paused and Mr. Wycherly looked rather anxious.

"She do make a sort of stir wherever she do go and that's the long and

short of it." And Mrs. Dew relapsed into broadest Gloucestershire again

as she blurted out this startling fact.

"Stir," Mr. Wycherly repeated, "stir. Do you mean that she is a

particularly noisy child?"

"No, sir, not that. Jane-Anne isn't that; but she does things no other

child ever thinks of doing and you can't seem to guard against it. The

very first month she was at the asylum, she went and put 'er foot

through a staircase window trying to see some soldiers as was passing.

They had a board meeting about it."

Mr. Wycherly laughed. "It is unusual to put one's foot through a

window, but surely that was an accident and not a moral offence?"

"It was a staircase window, as stretched all down one side of that

wing," Mrs. Dew said solemnly, "and the bannisters was up against it,

and Jane-Anne she leant over cranin' 'er 'ead to see them soldiers, and

she lost 'er balance and swung back and drove 'er foot right through and

cut 'er leg so it bled dreadful."

"Poor child," said Mr. Wycherly, "that's one thing she is quite safe

from here. There will be no temptation for her to put her feet through

any windows. Has she lost both her parents, Mrs. Dew?"

"That's another thing," said Mrs. Dew, dropping her voice mysteriously,

"as I feel you ought to know, and that is, Jane-Anne's father was a

Grecian."

"Really," Mr. Wycherly remarked, evidently quite unmoved by what Mrs.

Dew considered a most damaging fact. "A Greek; how interesting! What

was his name?"

"Staff rides," Mrs. Dew answered promptly. "At least that's what I call

it, but he called it something longer. I've tried to English it as much

as possible to match her really respectable Christian name."

"Do you happen to remember how it was spelt?" Mr. Wycherly asked.

"Yes, sir, S-T-A-V-R-I-D-E-S."

"Ah," Mr. Wycherly exclaimed; "now I've got it. Stavrides. Quite a

common Greek name. What part of Greece did he come from?"

"Athens, sir, an' it was there he met my sister, who was lady's maid to

Mrs. Methuen's cousin. She'd been schoolroom-maid first of all, then

when the young ladies grew up, they had her taught dressmaking and

hairdressin' and took her everywhere with them. And when Lady Lettice

married she took my sister Jane with her, and they travelled a lot, an'

in Athens there was a carriage accident and my sister was thrown out and

stunned, and this young man was passing and he picked her up, and it

seems he fell in love with her there and then, for all her eye was swole

up with the bump she got--she was a very-good-looking girl was

Jane--anyway, 'e never rested till 'e'd married 'er. He was, I suppose,

in a rather better position than she was, though, from bein' with the

young ladies so constant, my sister seemed to have caught their pretty

ways, and spoke exactly like them. She wasn't a bit like me," said Mrs.

Dew simply, "you'd never 'ave thought we was sisters."

"What was Stavrides?" Mr. Wycherly asked.

"A sort of writer, sir, for newspapers. When they got married he came to

London, and he was correspondent for some paper, some Grecian paper. It

isn't a trade I thinks much on, but he earned good money and he insured

his life heavy. And then, just like him it was, he forgot to pay the

premium, fell ill and died all of a hurry when Jane-Anne was but

four-year-old, and my sister was left without anything at all but some

forty pounds they 'ad in the bank."

"Poor thing," said Mr. Wycherly. "What did she do?"

"She did dressmaking, an' she took a lodger. Lady Lettice an' the young

ladies 'elped her all they could, and she was doin' pretty well when she

took an' died, an' she left Jane-Anne to me. My 'usban' was alive

then--not as he was much use, an' I've done my best, but you see, I'm

only a servant an' not being out reg'lar makes it harder. Lord Dursley,

he got her a nomination for the asylum at Baresgill, but I don't know if

she can stop there. It's very cold up there in Northumberland, an'

she's got a delicate chest. She've been there fifteen months, but 'as

'ad a lot of illness, an' I don't know if she can keep on. They don't

like it, you see, sir, such a lot of illness."

"I understand it is some kind of an orphanage. The boys, you know, spoke

to me about your niece, Mrs. Dew. I quite look forward to making her

acquaintance. Do they receive any special training where she is?"

"Oh, yes, sir, it's a most superior place where they train them for

young servants. They get their education and their clothes and good,

thorough training in household duties, and when they're seventeen they

put them out in good families that they know about, where they take an

interest in the servants and treat them well."

"It sounds an admirable institution," said Mr. Wycherly. "Are the

children happy there?"

"Most of the girls, sir, are happy as birds. It's a really good place,

sir, plenty of wholesome food, nice airy rooms--but there! Jane-Anne

she frets something dreadful. Sometimes I fear she'll never make a good

dependable servant. If it's book-learnin', now, she's on to it like a

cat on to a mouse. There's never no complaint there--but you never know

what flightiness Jane-Anne 'll be after."

"You see," Mr. Wycherly said indulgently, "she is only a child as yet.

We must have patience. Anyway, Mrs. Dew, I hope that is settled. Send

for your furniture and for Jane-Anne----"

"I am deeply obliged to you, sir," Mrs. Dew said earnestly, "and I will

endeavour to serve you faithful. I will arrange with Miss Morecraft,

her as I shares the 'ouse with, and I'll fetch Jane-Anne most thankfully

when she can be moved----"

"Is she ill then?"

"She's managed to get a most fearful cold on 'er chest; 'ow I can't

conceive, but so it is; she's that hoarse and croupy, Miss Morecraft's

kep' 'er in bed, and what I really came to ask, sir, was if I might pop

round after supper to see 'ow the child is."

"By all means, Mrs. Dew, and whenever she can be moved, bring her here.

Then you can look after her yourself."

Mr. Wycherly was very exhausted after this long conversation. He lay

back in his chair and closed his eyes with a sense of well-earned

repose. Whatever this child--this window-breaking, "cropping-up,"

generally disturbing little girl might be, she could not be one half so

dreadful as the sort of servant Mr. Wycherly saw himself a thrall to if

Mrs. Dew deserted him. Besides, Mrs. Dew, herself, would be there to

keep her in order.

"These domestic cares are very disorganising," he reflected. He felt a

positive distaste for the Migrarian School of Philosophy just then. The

pamphlet on Eubulides lay open at his elbow, but he ignored it.

Instead, he went over to his book-case and took from it "Tristram

Shandy," which he dearly loved. He opened it at random, standing where

he was, and his eyes fell on this passage:

"_'I can't get out--I can't get out,' said the starling._

"_I stood looking at the bird; and to every person who came through the

passage, it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approached it,

with the same lamentation of its captivity. 'I can't get out,' said the

starling. 'God help thee!' said I, 'but I'll let thee out, cost what it

will.'_"

"I wonder now," Mr. Wycherly thought to himself, "if that poor little

half-Greek girl feels like Sterne's starling."

*CHAPTER VII*

*JANE-ANNE SWEARS FEALTY*

"Minds lead each other in contrary directions, traverse each other in

numberless points, and at last greet each other at the journey's end.

An old man and a child would talk together; and the old man be led on

his path and the child left thinking." JOHN KEATS.

Jane-Anne had managed to get an exceedingly bad cold. To run on wet

grass in stockings, if one wears the stockings all the evening

afterwards, is not a wise proceeding for a delicate person. And when,

the next day, she went to keep her tryst with Edmund, she knew very well

that her lung was at its old tricks again; and that, had she been "at

the Bainbridge," matron would have sent for the doctor. He would have

listened at her back with his funny indiarubber tube, and would then

have muttered something mysterious about "crepitation."

Jane-Anne had her own idea of "crepitation," which she abbreviated to

"the creppits." She always pictured this unfortunate lung as a bent and

aged person sidling along "with legs that went tap-lapperty like men

that fear to fall."

It was tiresome that lung; for whenever it began its tap-lapperty

entertainment she felt so ill. Her head ached and her legs seemed to

weigh tons; her throat was hot and painful, and something seemed to

flutter in the palms of her hands like an imprisoned bird.

More dead than alive she crawled back from her meeting with the princess

to the stuffy little house "down in St. Clement's" that her aunt shared

with Miss Morecraft, knowing full well that bed would be her portion

directly anyone noticed how ill she looked.

Miss Morecraft, a dressmaker of severely respectable and melancholy

temperament, was not observant, and it happened that just then she was

very busy, as her customers were nearly all servants, and a new dress at

Whitsuntide is a matter of sacred ritual in that class.

She did, it is true, remark that Jane-Anne was "a dainty feeder" when

the child left her dinner almost untasted, but she did not "hold with

pampering children," and having eaten her own dinner with considerable

relish, went back to her work, having pressed Jane-Anne into the service

to do some basting.

It was not till the child nearly fainted during the afternoon that Miss

Morecraft awoke to the fact that Jane-Anne was really ill. She was

quite kind-hearted, and was rather shocked that she should have made the

child sew when she was evidently unfit for any effort of the kind. She

put her to bed, made her a cup of tea, and persuaded the milkman to call

and tell Mrs. Dew how matters were.

During the evening, Mrs. Dew "popped round," took Jane-Anne's

temperature, rubbed her with liniment, scolded her well, kissed her and

tucked her up in bed, and left her unaccountably cheered and comforted.

Next morning a strange, new doctor came. He, too, listened at

Jane-Anne's back with his funny double telephone. He, too, shook his

head and murmured something about crepitation and congestion, just like

the doctor at "Bainbridge's."

"Shall I be able to go back to school?" Jane-Anne croaked eagerly. She

was hoarse as a raven.

"When does school begin?" asked the doctor.

"It starts on the 5th of May. I have to go up on the 4th. It's such a

long way."

"And this is the 29th of April. No, certainly you won't. You won't be

fit for school for another fortnight, if then. Are you sorry?"

"No," said Jane-Anne candidly, "_I_'m not sorry, but Aunt Martha'll be

very sorry."

The doctor laughed. "Well, you must do your best to get well, that's

all; but it's no use your going anywhere till that lung has ceased

crackling."

Miss Morecraft was far too busy to attend to Jane-Anne herself, and Mrs.

Dew, recklessly extravagant if there was real cause for anxiety where

her sister's child was concerned, sent in a trained nurse.

The nurse did her duty by Jane-Anne, but considered the post rather

beneath her dignity, and was not interested in the fidgetty little girl

with the large eyes who sent up her temperature in an aggravating way by

getting excited over trifles.

One evening, when the temperature was once more normal, Mrs. Dew

informed Jane-Anne of her arrangement with Mr. Wycherly.

"Shall we really live there? Will it be our very own home--not shared?"

the child demanded with incredulous delight.

"If there's any sharing it's Mr. Wycherly what shares his house with

us," said Mrs. Dew. "I'm to have the cottage for myself, and we get the

housekeeper's room for a sitting-room."

"And I shall live in the house with those nice boys?" Jane-Anne went

on--"right in the same house."

"Yes," Mrs. Dew said; "but you must remember that you belong to the

kitchen part and there must be no trespassin'. It would never do for

you to be playin' with the young gentlemen like you was one of

theirselves. You must understand that from the very first. Not but

what they're very kind young gentlemen, and have ast after you over and

over again, an' Mr. Wycherly likewise. Master Edmund, he wants to come

and see you before he goes back to school."

"Oh, Aunt Martha, do let him. I should love it so. I promise I won't

go up, I'll stay normal, I truly will."

"That I don't believe for one minute, Jane-Anne; why, if I was to take

your temperature now--only I'm not going to--I know it'd be over a

hundred, with you so pink and all. No, I don't hold with Master Edmund

coming to see you here. I've never been really wrop up in this

place--too many threads and snippets about for my fancy an' a smell like

a draper's shop all day long. I've no wish as Master Edmund should see

you here--. Now don't you go cryin' out before you're hurt. Wait till

I can tell you----"

"Oh, aunt, what--do be quick."

"The doctor says that seein' the weather's so good, you can be moved any

time now provided you go straight to bed when you get there----"

"And you're going to move me--oh, Aunt Martha, how lovelly--to-day?"

"No, not to-day, but to-morrow, nurse'll bring you in a fly. And you

must promise to keep calm and not go bouncin' and exclaimin' and runnin'

up to a hundred over nothing at all."

"Aunt Martha, I'll behave like a stucky-image," Jane-Anne protested.

"You're more like a Jack-in-the-box than any image I've ever come

across, but I do think it'll be better for me to have you where I can

see to your food my own self. I don't seem to have no faith in that

nurse's beef-tea nor 'er arraroot--lumpy stuff what I saw. An' if

you're to be got strong enough to go back to the Bainbridge in the next

three weeks (I don't know how they 'll take this fresh worriment) you

must be fed up. So now you know. You're to get up for your tea and go

back to bed directly after, and you're to keep quiet and not get into a

fantique nor go makin' a palladum all about nothin'. Do you hear me,

Jane-Anne?"

"Yes, Aunt Martha, but I think fantiques and palladums must be lovelly

things; they sound so, and I long to make them, only I don't know how."

"It strikes me it's little else you'll ever make. Now lie down in bed

for I must run. Most considerate the master's been, letting me come off

at all times to see you, and I hope you'll remember it and try and make

yourself useful when you get about again. Good-bye, child, and we

shan't be separated much longer for which I thank the Lord as made us

both."

It marked a change in Mrs. Dew's attitude towards the household in

Holywell that she spoke of Mr. Wycherly as "the master." It suggested a

permanence in their relations which would have been very reassuring to

him had he heard it. Jane-Anne, too, noticed the phrase, and when her

aunt was gone gleefully repeated to herself:

"See-saw Margery Daw,

Jenny shall have a new master,

She shall have but a penny a day

Because she can work no faster."

"It's not Jenny really, it's Johnny, but Jenny does as well, and I'll

work without the penny," thought Jane-Anne, "if only that beautiful old

gentleman will be my master too."

Edmund had elected to take his guardian for a walk before tea, and led

him over Magdalen bridge, out into the Cowley Road, and finally into

Jeune Street.

"Why are you taking me this way?" Mr. Wycherly asked. "It does not

appear to me to be a particularly agreeable neighbourhood."

"It isn't," Edmund frankly agreed, "but now we're here we may as well

look in and see Jane-Anne; she's to sit up a bit this afternoon, Mrs.

Dew said so, and she said I needn't trouble to go and see her because

she's coming to us to-morrow, but I think we ought to go, you know,

especially as we're here. You haven't seen her, and she'll like coming

better if she's seen you."

"Edmund," said Mr. Wycherly, stopping in the middle of the road,

"acknowledge that you have brought me here with the deliberate intention

of visiting Mrs. Dew's niece."

"Well, Guardie, I _did_ think of it. Don't you think it's the proper

thing to do?"

By this time they had reached the door, whereupon Edmund knocked loudly

without waiting for further discussion.

Miss Morecraft was much flustered.

"Yes, they could see the little girl if they didn't mind coming

upstairs. She had just been got up and the nurse had gone out for a

breath of fresh air. Very warm for the time of year wasn't it."

Miss Morecraft opened the bedroom door, and without any announcement

squeezed herself against the outer wall that Mr. Wycherly might enter.

Jane-Anne was seated in an armchair at the window looking frail as a

sigh. She wore a bright pink flannelette dressing-gown which

accentuated her pallor. She loved this garment dearly, for dressing

growns were not included in the uniform of "The Bainbridge." Most of

the girls were far too strong and healthy to need them, and Mrs. Dew had

made this for Jane-Anne during one of her many illnesses.

Mr. Wycherly stood in the narrow doorway and the afternoon sun shone in

on him, on his silvery hair and gentle, high-bred face.

"May we come in, my dear?" he asked. "Do you feel well enough to see

us?"

Poor Jane-Anne was too weak to stand up and curtsey. She flushed and

paled, and paled and flushed as she turned her thin, sensitive little

face towards Mr. Wycherly, but there was no mistaking the welcome in her

great eyes, as she whispered: "Please do, sir, I'm so sorry I mayn't get

up and put a chair for you."

"I'll get him a chair," said Edmund, pushing in under his guardian's

arm, for the door was very narrow. "I thought I'd show him to you

before you came to-morrow, then you won't feel strange with any of us."

There wasn't much room in that bedroom. The bed took up most of the

floor and there was only one other chair besides Jane-Anne's, so Edmund

sat on the end of the bed.

"You must make haste and get strong," Mr. Wycherly said kindly, "and if

this fine weather goes on you'll be able to sit in the garden and get

plenty of fresh air that way! And when you are able we must see about a

little drive. That ought to be good for you."

"Oh!" exclaimed Jane-Anne. "Oh! I don't know how I shall wait till

to-morrow, I want to come so much."

"Let's get a cab and take her now," Edmund suggested; "it would be a

lark, and such a surprise for Mrs. Dew."

Jane-Anne looked from Edmund to Mr. Wycherly, but saw that the

enchanting proposition found no favour in his eyes.

"We mustn't do that," he said, "we haven't got the doctor's permission,

and I don't think Mrs. Dew has got her room ready yet."

"This bed's coming for me to-morrow," Jane-Anne said shyly. "The things

in this room are Aunt's."

"You won't be such a squash in the room you're going to have," Edmund

remarked. "It's not a big room but you'll be able to get round the

furniture better."

"It will be so lovelly to have a little room of my own," Jane-Anne said

softly.

"I hope you will sleep well in it, and get strong," said Mr. Wycherly.

"And I am sure Mrs. Dew will make it as pretty for you as possible. And

now, my child, we must go. I don't think you are very fit for visitors

as yet, and we mustn't tire you. We just looked in to tell you how

welcome you will be to-morrow."

"We've got a bathroom, you know," Edmund said proudly, anxious to do the

honours of their house. "Hot and cold and a squirty thing for washing

your head, you can use it for the rest of you, too, if you like, but it

makes rather a mess. It's in the basin really, and we do each other

sometimes. I do like a bathroom, don't you?"

Jane-Anne murmured her appreciation of that luxury, and Mr. Wycherly

held out his hand to her, and she gave him hers; such a nervous little

hand, so thin and hectic and fluttering: yet it grew still as it lay in

his, and there seemed some subtle contact in its gentle clasp.

The child's eyes and the old man's met in a long gaze that asked and

promised much.

The eager, hungry little face grew a thought dim to Mr. Wycherly, it was

so wistful and so wan. Instead of good-bye, he said, "God bless you, my

child, God bless you," and went out of the room rather quickly.

Edmund's farewells were longer, and Mr. Wycherly waited patiently for

him in the sunny street. He had gone out so quietly that Miss Morecraft

never heard him.

She heard Edmund, though, and hastened to the door to speed the parting

guest.

Jane-Anne, faint with rapture, lay crumpled up in her chair.

"He looked at me," she whispered, "he looked at me just like he looked

at him that night when I peeped through the window--just every bit as

kind.

"See-saw Margery Daw,

Jenny has got a new master."

*CHAPTER VIII*

*JANE-ANNE ASSISTS PROVIDENCE*

"To be sick is to enjoy monarchial

Prerogatives." _Elia_.

The doctor was Mrs. Methuen's doctor, and she had told him something of

Mrs. Dew and his little patient; of how that worthy woman had given up

place after place in the last five years that she might keep "an 'ome"

for her orphaned niece; of how Jane-Anne was born in Athens and brought

to London when she was a baby; of the modest, beautiful lady's maid, her

mother, and the brilliant irresponsible young journalist, her father, so

that he felt a kindly interest in his excitable little patient, and was

sympathetically glad that "an 'ome" had been found for aunt and niece

that seemed to promise rooted comfort and stability for both of them.

Therefore, when, on the morning fixed for Jane-Anne's removal to

Holywell, he came to sanction or forbid that removal, he refrained from

taking her temperature and said that the child could go.

Whereupon Jane-Anne's strength was increased tenfold, so that when she

was dressed she walked across the room by herself, and sat in a chair by

the window while the nurse packed her yellow tin trunk.

Then came the great, the tremendous moment when the fly stood before the

door, and the strong young nurse carried her downstairs and placed her

in it, with a cushion for her back and a rug sent by Mr. Wycherly over

her knees.

The drive passed like a brilliant dream. The men were up and the busy

streets were full of bustling life and youthful jollity. Jane-Anne sat

forward in her seat, the wavering colour vivid in her cheeks, and even

the inverted pie-dish could not wholly shadow the bright gaiety of her

eyes. All too soon it was over and they stopped before the archway in

Holywell where Mrs. Dew was waiting to help her niece in at the

side-door.

It seemed a little hard to be hustled up to her aunt's room and there

and then undressed and put to bed--a tame ending to so thrilling an

experience; but once between the sheets Jane-Anne discovered that she

was unaccountably and extraordinarily tired. She meekly drank the egg

beaten up in warm milk that her aunt brought her, lay back on the

pillow, and at once fell fast asleep.

Since term began Edmund had been exceedingly busy. Never before had he

seen so many young men gathered together.

Hitherto his acquaintance had lain almost exclusively among elderly

persons or boys of his own age. To be sure there were two youngish

masters at his preparatory school, but the mere fact that they were

masters set them on a distant and undesirable plane for Edmund.

But now young men, young men were all around him: in the houses

opposite, on the pavements, in the hitherto so stately and silent

quadrangles, on the river, in the playing fields.

One night as he lay in bed Edmund had heard a great many cabs plying up

and down Holywell, and in the morning this transformation had come to

pass. The tide of youthful life flooded every corner. Even the grave

grey buildings seemed to open sleepy eyes and laugh and wink at one

another in enjoyment of this resistless torrent, and all the inherent

sociability in Edmund's nature gushed forth to join and mingle in the

jocund stream.

Before three days had passed he had friends in half a dozen colleges.

His method of procedure was quite simple. He sallied forth without

Montagu, who was shy and exclusive and would have died rather than

address a stranger without legitimate cause, and selecting an apparently

amiable and manifestly idle youth, asked him the way somewhere in

broadest Doric. On two occasions he happened to hit upon a

fellow-countryman, and directly he discovered this he spoke in an

ordinary way, and they were friends at once. He generally explained

exhaustively who he was and whence he came, where he lived and the

resources of the establishment in Holywell, and his new-found friends

evidently found his conversation amusing, for they neither snubbed nor

checked his garrulity.

On the day of Jane-Anne's arrival he had been out all the morning

finding his way about Oxford by the means indicated, and only returned

just as Mrs. Dew was laying luncheon.

"Is Jane-Anne not coming till afternoon?" he asked.

"Jane-Anne's here, Master Edmund, been here these two hours."

"Here! and we've never been told nor seen her. Where is she?"

"Sound asleep in my bed, she's that weak--but I don't believe moving

her's done her a bit of harm, she's sleeping like a baby and looks that

contented----"

"Can we go and look at her?" asked Montagu.

"No, sir, please, sir, I'd rather she slep' as long as she can. She's

not slep' much this last week an' I shall let her be till she wakes."

"Will you tell us whenever she wakes?" Edmund persisted. "You see, we

go back to school in two days now so we shan't see very much of her,

'specially if we don't begin at once."

"You young gentlemen had better keep on with your own doin's and never

mind Jane-Anne. She's got to go to school, too--soon as she's well

enough," said Mrs. Dew primly. She set the last spoon and fork

symmetrically in their places and went back to the kitchen to dish up

lunch.

Edmund looked across at Montagu. "I shall stop in this afternoon, and

I'm going to see Jane-Anne," he whispered obstinately; "she's in our

house."

"So'm I," said Montagu with brief decision.

The bed and "bits of furniture" came from Jeune Street in the afternoon,

and the noise of the men carrying things up the uncarpeted stairs woke

Jane-Anne, who lay for a minute staring at the unfamiliar room and

wondering where she was.

It was a fairly large room with a wide latticed window that overlooked

the stone-cutter's yard, for the cottage was to the side of the house

and its three windows looked that way. Clean muslin curtains hung at

the window, so that Jane-Anne couldn't see out except when they moved

with the breeze. The ceiling was low and an oak beam crossed it. Most

of the rooms in the main part of the house were panelled, but here they

were papered, and the paper was of a cheerful chintzy pattern with

garlands of little pink roses.

The furniture was all of brightly polished mahogany that had been in

Elsa's room at Remote, and it had that characteristic individual look

only to be found in old furniture well tended by careful hands through

many years.

The Chippendale Talboys had a scroll top with a pedestal in the centre,

and on that pedestal was a little brass owl. The handles had lost their

lacquer with time, but the warm red wood was mirror-like in its

brightness, and in the great "press"--a cupboard in two divisions with

deep sliding shelves--Jane-Anne watched the reflection of the fluttering

curtain with sleepy satisfaction.

She had no idea why she liked these things so much better than the

painted wood that furnished the bedroom in Jeune Street, but she did

like them amazingly, and their presence filled her with such

satisfaction as caused her for a little while to forget how exceedingly

hungry she was.

Presently the door was opened a little way and a fair curly head was

poked through cautiously. Jane-Anne was lying with her back to the

door, and all that was visible of her was a night of black hair

streaming over the quilt and a long slender mound in the bed where her

body lay. She was so still that Edmund thought she was asleep, and was

going away again when something, some tiny sound, caused her to turn

round, and she saw him.

Edmund vanished like a flash and she heard his stentorian voice

proclaiming: "She's awake, Mrs. Dew; you can bring that chicken."

Then he returned, and nodding at her in most friendly fashion seated

himself at the end of the bed, remarking:

"What an awful lot of hair you've got; isn't it frightfully hot?"

"I can never keep the ribbons on it in bed. I don't mind it. I rather

like to be hot."

The two stared at each other, and Edmund decided that Jane-Anne looked

nicer in bed than when she was up. The soft, shadowy masses of her hair

were infinitely more becoming than the pie-dish. Her forehead was

smooth and placid. There was no deep wrinkle between her black

eyebrows.

"I'm glad you're here," said Edmund genially; "but it's a pity you're in

bed. You might have done some more fielding if you'd been up."

"I'm very sorry I can't run after balls for you, sir," Jane-Anne said

meekly, "but I can't be sorry I'm in bed, for if I wasn't I'd be going

back to the Bainbridge almost at once, and now doctor says I can't go

for another fortnight."

"And you're glad not to go? Why?"

"Because----" said Jane-Anne; but at this moment Mrs. Dew appeared with

a tray. She swept Edmund out of the room, plumped up the invalid's

pillows, got her into a bed-jacket, and then stood over her while, with

the best will in the world, Jane-Anne did full justice to her dinner.

"What a pretty room this is, Aunt Martha," she said when she had eaten

the last spoonful of pudding. "What is it makes it so pretty?"

"The things in it is all good," Mrs. Dew replied, "all old and good; not

at all what's suited to a servant's bedroom, if you ask me. But they

was here when I came, an', of course, it isn't for me to find fault.

The other things has come, and I've got them arranged, but the carpet

couldn't be nailed down for fear of waking you. They look very

different in a good-sized room to what they did in Jeune Street, I can

tell you. I'm very pleased to see my own things what I'm used to. You

shall have this room, Jane-Anne, while you're here. I'll move my

clothes to-morrow and put yours in. If it isn't Master Edmund again,

and Master Montagu with 'im--I never knew such perseverin' young

varmints, an' the times I've sent them away. One'd think you was some

sort of a exhibition, that one would. Yes, sirs, you may come in, but

you mustn't stop long. One'd think as you'd never seen a sick person

before, an' me not had time so much as to wash her face before you was

back again. What! Mr. Wycherly wants to come and see her after tea?

Well, it's a great honour, and very kind on his part after going

yesterday and all."

This time the interview was brief and unsatisfactory, for Mrs. Dew

remained in the room and Montagu, in consequence, was absolutely dumb,

while Jane-Anne was too nervous to do more than mumble negatives or

affirmatives to the innumerable questions asked by the quite

unembarrassed Edmund.

After five minutes of it the boys departed of their own accord.

Jane-Anne slept again from lunch till tea time, and after tea Mr.

Wycherly came to see her.

This time Mrs. Dew did not remain. She set a chair for him and left

them. Jane-Anne was sitting up in bed, arrayed in a white dimity jacket

of Mrs. Dew's. This garment was voluminous and much too large for its

wearer, so that Jane-Anne's face and hair seemed to emerge from amidst a

billowy sea of dimity. Her hair was still loose and streamed over the

bed. Mrs. Dew had wanted to plait it up, but Jane-Anne said the thick

plaits hurt her head when she lay down, so her aunt gave way.

"You are looking better, my child," said Mr. Wycherly.

"I am better, sir; I'm nearly well, I'm afraid."

"Afraid! but surely you want to be well?"

"I should if I was going to stay here," Jane-Anne said earnestly. "Sir,

do you think you could stop me going back to the Bainbridge?"

"Stop you," Mr. Wycherly repeated, much perplexed. "But I thought----"

"I'm sure," Jane-Anne interrupted eagerly, "if it's to learn to be a

servant that I've got to go back, Aunt could teach me just as

well--better, I think. She can do everything they do there, and do it

nicer than the people that teaches us. She is a good servant, isn't

she, sir?"

"Your aunt is a quite admirable person," Mr. Wycherly said gravely, "and

most accomplished in every household art; but from what she told me I

gathered that this school is a very good one, and that it was a great

help to her to have got you into it."

Jane-Anne's eager face blanched. "Please, sir," she whispered, "if I

promise to eat very little and work very hard would you let me stay with

you and aunt?" She clasped her hands and leant forward, devouring Mr.

Wycherly's face with her great tragic eyes. "Aunt would be very angry

if she knew I'd spoken to you; but you could stop me going if you liked,

and if I go back, I shall die, I know I shall."

"What is it you dislike so much?" Mr. Wycherly asked.

"All of it, except the lessons, they are lovelly. I can't seem to do it;

my back aches so, and it's so cold."

"But it won't be cold this time. Summer is almost here."

"It isn't the weather, it's my heart," cried Jane-Anne; "it's that

that's so cold. Nobody cares much about me, they think me odd and

funny. Do you think me odd and funny, sir?"

Mr. Wycherly certainly did, but he laid one of his beautiful old hands

on Jane-Anne's, saying gently, "I think that as yet you are not very

strong, and I am quite sure that it is bad for you to worry about going

back. You can't possibly go back for another fortnight, your aunt said

so, and--who knows----?"

Mr. Wycherly had not intended to say this last at all. It was most

unwise and misleading, but the brown eyes held his and compelled him to

give them comfort. He tried to patch up his mistake by saying, in a

matter of fact tone: "Suppose Montagu or Edmund begged me not to send

him back to school, what should I do? Because, you see, I know that

school is the best place for them--though for me the sun sets and never

rises till they come back. We all have to do things we don't like."

"But they like school--they told me so."

"You probably would like it, too, if you made up your mind to do so."

"I've tried so hard, sir. I really have. Your young gentlemen don't

have to wear horrid clothes at their school; you don't know how dismal

it is. I believe if I might live here with you and aunt I'd never have

the creppits any more; I'd be so warm and happy in my heart."

"Well, you must keep on being warm and happy, and get strong and

merry--and then--we'll see what can be done."

Oh, weak, soft-hearted Mr. Wycherly! Against his will, against his

better judgment, the words slipped out.

Jane-Anne, white but radiant, lay back exhausted on her pillows. Mr.

Wycherly stood up to go. "Promise me," he said, "that you won't worry,

that you will eat and sleep as much as you can, that you will do

everything that your good aunt and the doctor bid you, and that you will

try to be happy and at home."

Jane-Anne sat forward again. "Mr. Wycherly, sir," she said

breathlessly, "you won't forget, you will try and make aunt keep me? Oh,

I have cried and cried, and prayed and prayed, and I don't think God can

expect much more of a little girl like me, do you?"

"Crying is absolutely forbidden. You must promise me that you won't cry

any more."

"I promise," she said meekly, and lay back on her pillows again. "But

you, too; you won't forget?"

"I certainly shall not forget. Now I must really go."

He had reached the door, when an imperative cry from the bed stopped

him.

"You haven't said it."

"Said what?" and Mr. Wycherly trembled lest she should force him to

swear then and there that she should not go back to the Bainbridge.

"What you said yesterday afternoon. Please say it, and then perhaps He

will."

"God bless you, my child," Mr. Wycherly mumbled, much embarrassed.

As he made his way through the housekeeper's room to his own part of the

house he reflected that Mrs. Dew was certainly right when she described

her niece as "making a stir." She had assuredly stirred his heart to a

quite painful extent. He was moved and perturbed and puzzled as he had

not been for many a long day, and through all his pondering there

sounded Sterne's words to the imprisoned starling: "_'God help thee--but

I'll let thee out, cost what it will.'_"

*CHAPTER IX*

*THE QUEST*

"My voice shall with thy future visions blend,

And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold,

A token and a tone...." _Childe Harold_.

Next day Jane-Anne was allowed to sit in the garden under the

apple-tree: a queer little hunched-up figure in the tight stuff-dress

and a shawl. She also wore the pie-dish, for Mrs. Dew was one of those

people who considered it almost disreputable to be out of doors

bare-headed.

She sat in a basket-chair and on her knees lay her most recent prize,

"Home Influence," a fat handsome volume bound in purple cloth with gilt

edges. For lessons, Jane-Anne had won every prize open to her at the

asylum. Although she had only been there a year, and that year

constantly broken by long bouts of illness, she had gained seven books.

These, which included a Bible, a prayer-book, and church hymnal, with

one other comprised her whole library. The prizes were all of a moral

and edifying character, and Jane-Anne had read them over and over again

hungrily, with the passionate interest and enthusiasm which she brought

to everything outside her actual daily duties. And although she

whole-heartedly admired them she was yet subconsciously critical and

unsatisfied. She regarded her prizes with the greatest respect.

Familiarity had, so far, bred no contempt for them in her mind, but all

the time she felt that there was something lacking. Although they were

the only books she possessed, they were not the only ones she had read.

In the previous autumn, her mother's mistress, Lady Dursley, had

commanded her aunt to take the child for a change to their place in

Gloucestershire, accompanying the order with a liberal cheque for

travelling expenses. The family was in Scotland and most of the big

house shut up, and nearly all the servants were making holiday, except

the housekeeper, an old friend of Mrs. Dew, and one elderly

kitchen-maid. But the great library was open, for a young man had been

sent down to catalogue the books. He was an intelligent young man and

took a fancy to Jane-Anne and had her with him a great deal. He found

her books he thought good for her, and on departure presented her with

the little green-covered "Children's Treasury," compiled by Palgrave.

In this Jane-Anne read constantly and carefully, not because she was

particularly attracted by the poems, though some of them she loved and

learned by heart, but because whenever she came across any poetry she

searched through it eagerly in the hope of finding a poem her father

used to repeat to her. She had read and re-read the little green book

unceasingly, but nowhere could she find her poem.

Her father died before she was five years old, but Jane-Anne's

recollection of him was curiously vivid, and at this very moment her

mind strove to materialise a memory elusive in some ways as a puff of

smoke, sharp and defined in others as a tongue of leaping flame against

a midnight sky.

The moment Mrs. Dew had safely disappeared into the house the child

dragged off the pie-dish and cast it violently on the grass at her feet.

Then she lay back in her chair, her eyes dreamy and pensive, though ever

and again she knit her black eyebrows in her effort to remember.

Her thin hands lay folded above the unopened volume on her knees and she

sat very still.

It was warm and pleasant in Mr. Wycherly's garden; a thrush sang in the

boughs above her head, and every now and then pink and white petals

dropped softly upon her hair. A flutter of wind blew over a great clump

of narcissus bearing their perfume on its wings, and the heavy scent was

memory-laden for Jane-Anne.

She saw a long, low-ceiled, lamp-lit room with a window at either end

and all the furniture ranged round the walls that a free path might be

open for the restless pacing up and down of one who was never too busy

or too absorbed to be at the beck and call of an often fretful little

girl. As in a vision she beheld that man "with all his keen worn look

and Grecian grace" tramping to and fro and holding in his arms a tired,

fidgetty child who could not sleep.

Backwards and forwards he went, and with the soothing movement was the

sound of words sorrowful and majestic, musical in their rhythmic swing

and balance: words that poor Jane-Anne could never remember though she

felt that they were written indelibly on mind and heart but covered,

covered deeply with layer upon layer of fugitive things of little worth.

Some day, she was convinced, she would find that poetry and with it a

thousand things about her father that she had forgotten. He often wore

a narcissus in his button-hole, and as her head lay on his shoulder the

crushed flower gave forth a double fragrance.

It was this familiar scent, strong in the warm old Oxford garden, that

seemed to compass her about in an atmosphere of memories, memories of a

time when she, too, was always warm, cared about, schemed for, enwheel'd

around with love on every hand.

The lines between the black eyebrows were smoothed out as by a tender

hand. The unremembered poem ceased to worry her. She would find it

some day. Meanwhile, she was sure her daddy knew she loved him. There

was something he had told her to remember and she had forgotten, but

only for a little while. It would come back, she was sure it would come

back. Here, in this house, where there were so many books, perhaps she

would find it.

She saw again her beautiful, gentle mother, so calm always and patient.

Mrs. Dew was careful to impress upon Jane-Anne that she in no way

resembled her mother, and the child never resented this reproach, for

had not that very mother rejoiced in her likeness to her father? "My

little Maid of Athens," had been her mother's name for Jane-Anne, and

Jane-Anne treasured it in her mind. She knew that her worthy aunt had

never either liked or approved of her father, and this only made her

more passionately loyal to his memory. She pondered these things in her

heart, puzzled and pained sometimes, but never daunted in her pride. It

was from no mean country that her father had come, she was sure of that.

She knew little enough of Greece, nothing of its great history, but

chance phrases that she had heard in infancy remained in her mind. She

was sure that there was something to know, something worth knowing, and

that she would know it some day.

She never spoke of her parents to her companions at the asylum; and

although Mrs. Dew would often talk fondly and proudly of her mother and

Jane-Anne loved her for it, her aunt's silence with regard to the father

she adored filled the child with a resentment none the less bitter that

it never found expression. Jane-Anne was perfectly aware of her hostile

attitude, although Mrs. Dew was careful never to say one word in

disparagement of a man she had been quite unable to understand; whom she

had heartily disliked.

"I wonder why I'm thinking so much of my daddie since I came here?"

Jane-Anne thought to herself. "I suppose it's because I'm happier."

Presently, over the grass towards her came Montagu, very long in the leg

and short in the sleeve. Edmund was out zestfully finding his way about

Oxford in his recently discovered fashion.

Montagu sat down on the grass at Jane-Anne's feet and looked up at her,

smiling broadly, but never a word said he till he espied the book in her

lap.

"What's that?" he asked.

"One of my prizes, sir," Jane-Anne answered primly.

"Is it decent?"

"It's most interesting."

"Can I look at it?"

The book changed hands and Montagu began to read. He turned the pages

very fast, to the wonderment of Jane-Anne, who had never seen people

read after this fashion.

He was lying face-downwards on the grass in front of her, and she

watched his eyes as they swept the page from top to bottom in,

apparently, one glance. She liked his thin brown face with the large

kind eyes and firm capable mouth that was always shut when he wasn't

talking, but just at that moment she thought that his expression was

less pleasant than usual, that there was something scornful and almost

sinister about his mouth, and yet she was sure that in some queer way he

was amused. Why?

Jane-Anne had never found anything in the least amusing in the work in

question; interesting, certainly; "touching" (the lady who gave them

Sunday lessons at the asylum was fond of the word "touching")

frequently; but humorous never. The authorities who chose books for

female orphans at the Bainbridge did not consider the cultivation of a

sense of humour in any way a necessary part of the training.

Presently Montagu began to dip into the book here and there, still

reading with that lightning-like rapidity that so astonished Jane-Anne.

In five minutes he shut it with a slam and looked up at her and laughed.

"What awful rot," he remarked genially, as though certain of sympathy.

Jane-Anne gazed at him in consternation. "Rot?" she faltered.

"Fearful squish; you don't mean to say you really like it?"

"I don't know what you mean," she said, so offended that she quite

forgot the respectful "sir."

"It's so stilted and bombastic and unnatural. The style"--here Montagu

unconsciously gave a perfect imitation of his house master's manner--"is

so cheap and meretricious."

"I don't understand about style in books," said Jane-Anne, still much

umbraged. "D'you mean the binding?"

"Good gracious, no. I mean the way it's written. Listen to this"--and

Montagu opened the book haphazard and read the following extract

aloud:--"'He had been minister of a favourite church in one of the

southern towns, and master of an establishment for youths of high rank,

in both which capacities he had given universal satisfaction. The

reprehensible conduct of some of his pupils, carried on at first so

secretly as to elude his knowledge, at length became so notorious as to

demand examination. He had at first refused all credence, but when

proved by the confused replies of all, and half-confession of some, he

briefly and emphatically laid before them the enormity of their conduct,

and declared, that as confidence was entirely broken between them, he

would resign the honour of their education, refusing to admit them any

longer as members of his establishment.' There!" Montagu exclaimed,

"could you have anything worse?"

"I think it's all said very properly and grandly," Jane-Anne protested.

"I don't see what's the matter with it at all."

Montagu rolled over on the grass and sat up. "It's the grandness that's

so detestable."

"It's my best prize," she said indignantly.

"I'm sorry," said Montagu, seeing that she was really hurt, "but you ask

Guardie about that sort of writing."

"It's printed," snapped Jane-Anne.

Montagu gazed at her in hopeless bewilderment. He had never before

argued with a girl.

Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes filled with angry tears. She

clenched her thin little hands and bit her lips to keep from bursting

into sobs.

"I say," Montagu exclaimed, with real contrition, "why do you mind?

What does it matter what I think?"

"If you," Jane-Anne gasped, "had as few books as me, and loved them

every one dearly, and then someone came along and abused them and called

them 'rot' and 'merry something' and 'squish,' _you_ wouldn't like it."

This time the big tears escaped, rolled over and down her cheeks,

dropping with a splash on to the plaid shawl covering her knees.

And at this critical moment Mr. Wycherly came out of the house and

across the grass towards them. He had seen the children from his study

window, and remembering that the boys went back to school next day,

decided to seek their society under the pleasant shade of the

apple-tree.

Montagu stalked over to the tool house to fetch a chair for his guardian

and arrived with it as Mr. Wycherly reached the apple-tree. Jane-Anne

had lost her handkerchief, the tears were shining on her cheeks, and she

gave a most unmistakable sniff just as Mr. Wycherly reached them. But

she stood up and curtsied with downcast eyes and burning cheeks, and at

the same moment Montagu came back bearing a chair for his guardian.

"What is the matter?" asked Mr. Wycherly.

Jane-Anne continued to stand, and lifted her tear-washed eyes to his

face. Had it been stern or severe she could never have answered a word;

as it was, she said quite simply: "He didn't like my prize and I

minded."

Mr. Wycherly sat down in the chair Montagu had brought and looked from

the pained and indignant Jane-Anne to the evidently puzzled and

distressed Montagu.

"Suppose we all sit down and try to come to a better understanding," he

said.

Jane-Anne sank heavily into her chair. She was still weak, and even the

little effort to greet Mr. Wycherly with due respect caused her legs to

quake and her heart to beat thunderously in her ears.

She leant her head against the back of the chair and looked so white

that for a moment Mr. Wycherly thought she was about to faint. But she

did nothing of the kind.

Instead, she said in a voice that wholly belied her exhausted

appearance: "Have you read 'Home Influence,' sir?"

"I don't think so," said Mr. Wycherly; "is that the name of the book

under discussion?"

Jane-Anne held it out towards him; he took it from her carefully, placed

his eye-glasses on his nose, opened it haphazard, and began to read.

Precisely the same thing happened as with Montagu. His eyes sought a

page and he turned it. This extraordinary way of reading was not

peculiar to Montagu, that was evident. But in Mr. Wycherly's face

neither scorn nor amusement was portrayed, only a polite interest.