VII

BELINDA AND BELLAMANT; OR THE BELLS OF CARRILLON-LAND

There is a certain country where a king is never allowed to reign while a queen can be found. They like queens much better than kings in that country. I can't think why. If some one has tried to teach you a little history, you will perhaps think that this is the Salic law. But it isn't. In the biggest city of that odd country there is a great bell-tower (higher than the clock-tower of the Houses of Parliament, where they put M.P.'s who forget their manners). This bell-tower had seven bells in it, very sweet-toned splendid bells, made expressly to ring on the joyful occasions when a princess was born who would be queen some day. And the great tower was built expressly for the bells to ring in. So you see what a lot they thought of queens in that country. Now in all the bells there are bell-people—it is their voices that you hear when the bells ring. All that about its being the clapper of the bell is mere nonsense, and would hardly deceive a child. I don't know why people say such things. Most Bell-people are very energetic busy folk, who love the sound of their own voices, and hate being idle, and when nearly two hundred years had gone by, and no princesses had been born, they got tired of living in bells that were never rung. So they slipped out of the belfry one fine frosty night, and left the big beautiful bells empty, and went off to find other homes. One of them went to live in a dinner-bell, and one in a school-bell, and the rest all found homes—they did not mind where—just anywhere, in fact, where they could find any Bell-person kind enough to give them board and lodging. And every one was surprised at the increased loudness in the voices of these hospitable bells. For, of course, the Bell-people from the belfry did their best to help in the housework as polite guests should, and always added their voices to those of their hosts on all occasions when bell-talk was called for. And the seven big beautiful bells in the belfry were left hollow and dark and quite empty, except for the clappers who did not care about the comforts of a home.

Now of course a good house does not remain empty long, especially when there is no rent to pay, and in a very short time the seven bells all had tenants, and they were all the kind of folk that no respectable Bell-people would care to be acquainted with.

They had been turned out of other bells—cracked bells and broken bells, the bells of horses that had been lost in snowstorms or of ships that had gone down at sea. They hated work, and they were a glum, silent, disagreeable people, but as far as they could be pleased about anything they were pleased to live in bells that were never rung, in houses where there was nothing to do. They sat hunched up under the black domes of their houses, dressed in darkness and cobwebs, and their only pleasure was idleness, their only feasts the thick dusty silence that lies heavy in all belfries where the bells never ring. They hardly ever spoke even to each other, and in the whispers that good Bell-people talk in among themselves, and that no one can hear but the bat whose ear for music is very fine and who has himself a particularly high voice, and when they did speak they quarrelled.

And when at last the bells were rung for the birth of a Princess the wicked Bell-people were furious. Of course they had to ring—a bell can't help that when the rope is pulled—but their voices were so ugly that people were quite shocked.

'What poor taste our ancestors must have had,' they said, 'to think these were good bells!'

(You remember the bells had not rung for nearly two hundred years.)

'Dear me,' said the King to the Queen, 'what odd ideas people had in the old days. I always understood that these bells had beautiful voices.'

'They're quite hideous,' said the Queen. And so they were. Now that night the lazy Bell-folk came down out of the belfry full of anger against the Princess whose birth had disturbed their idleness. There is no anger like that of a lazy person who is made to work against his will.

And they crept out of the dark domes of their houses and came down in their dust dresses and cobweb cloaks, and crept up to the palace where every one had gone to bed long before, and stood round the mother-of-pearl cradle where the baby princess lay asleep. And they reached their seven dark right hands out across the white satin coverlet, and the oldest and hoarsest and laziest said:

'She shall grow uglier every day, except Sundays, and every Sunday she shall be seven times prettier than the Sunday before.'

'Why not uglier every day, and a double dose on Sunday?' asked the youngest and spitefullest of the wicked Bell-people.

'Because there's no rule without an exception,' said the eldest and hoarsest and laziest, 'and she'll feel it all the more if she's pretty once a week. And,' he added, 'this shall go on till she finds a bell that doesn't ring, and can't ring, and never will ring, and wasn't made to ring.'

'Why not for ever?' asked the young and spiteful.

'Nothing goes on for ever,' said the eldest Bell-person, 'not even ill-luck. And we have to leave her a way out. It doesn't matter. She'll never know what it is. Let alone finding it.'

Then they went back to the belfry and rearranged as well as they could the comfortable web-and-owls' nest furniture of their houses which had all been shaken up and disarranged by that absurd ringing of bells at the birth of a Princess that nobody could really be pleased about.

When the Princess was two weeks old the King said to the Queen:

'My love—the Princess is not so handsome as I thought she was.'

'Nonsense, Henry,' said the Queen, 'the light's not good, that's all.'

Next day—it was Sunday—the King pulled back the lace curtains of the cradle and said:

'The light's good enough now—and you see she's——'

He stopped.

'It must have been the light,' he said, 'she looks all right to-day.'

'Of course she does, a precious,' said the Queen.

But on Monday morning His Majesty was quite sure really that the Princess was rather plain, for a Princess. And when Sunday came, and the Princess had on her best robe and the cap with the little white ribbons in the frill, he rubbed his nose and said there was no doubt dress did make a great deal of difference. For the Princess was now as pretty as a new daisy.

The Princess was several years old before her mother could be got to see that it really was better for the child to wear plain clothes and a veil on week days. On Sundays, of course she could wear her best frock and a clean crown just like anybody else.

Of course nobody ever told the Princess how ugly she was. She wore a veil on week-days, and so did every one else in the palace, and she was never allowed to look in the glass except on Sundays, so that she had no idea that she was not as pretty all the week as she was on the first day of it. She grew up therefore quite contented. But the parents were in despair.

'Because,' said King Henry, 'it's high time she was married. We ought to choose a king to rule the realm—I have always looked forward to her marrying at twenty-one—and to our retiring on a modest competence to some nice little place in the country where we could have a few pigs.'

'And a cow,' said the Queen, wiping her eyes.

'And a pony and trap,' said the King.

'And hens,' said the Queen, 'yes. And now it can never, never be. Look at the child! I just ask you! Look at her!'

'No,' said the King firmly, 'I haven't done that since she was ten, except on Sundays.'

'Couldn't we get a prince to agree to a "Sundays only" marriage—not let him see her during the week?'

'Such an unusual arrangement,' said the King, 'would involve very awkward explanations, and I can't think of any except the true ones, which would be quite impossible to give. You see, we should want a first-class prince, and no really high-toned Highness would take a wife on those terms.'

'It's a thoroughly comfortable kingdom,' said the Queen doubtfully. 'The young man would be handsomely provided for for life.'

'I couldn't marry Belinda to a time-server or a place-worshipper,' said the King decidedly.

Meanwhile the Princess had taken the matter into her own hands. She had fallen in love.

You know, of course, that a handsome book is sent out every year to all the kings who have daughters to marry. It is rather like the illustrated catalogues of Liberty's or Peter Robinson's, only instead of illustrations showing furniture or ladies' cloaks and dresses, the pictures are all of princes who are of an age to be married, and are looking out for suitable wives. The book is called the 'Royal Match Catalogue Illustrated,'—and besides the pictures of the princes it has little printed bits about their incomes, accomplishments, prospects, and tempers, and relations.

Now the Princess saw this book—which is never shown to princesses, but only to their parents—it was carelessly left lying on the round table in the parlour. She looked all through it, and she hated each prince more than the one before till she came to the very end, and on the last page of all, screwed away in a corner, was the picture of a prince who was quite as good-looking as a prince has any call to be.

'I like you,' said Belinda softly. Then she read the little bit of print underneath.

Prince Bellamant, aged twenty-four. Wants Princess who doesn't object to a christening curse. Nature of curse only revealed in the strictest confidence. Good tempered. Comfortably off. Quiet habits. No relations.

'Poor dear,' said the Princess. 'I wonder what the curse is! I'm sure I shouldn't mind!'

The blue dusk of evening was deepening in the garden outside. The Princess rang for the lamp and went to draw the curtain. There was a rustle and a faint high squeak—and something black flopped on to the floor and fluttered there.

'Oh—it's a bat,' cried the Princess, as the lamp came in. 'I don't like bats.'

'Let me fetch a dust-pan and brush and sweep the nasty thing away,' said the parlourmaid.

'No, no,' said Belinda, 'it's hurt, poor dear,' and though she hated bats she picked it up. It was horribly cold to touch, one wing dragged loosely. 'You can go, Jane,' said the Princess to the parlourmaid.

Then she got a big velvet-covered box that had had chocolate in it, and put some cotton wool in it and said to the Bat—

'You poor dear, is that comfortable?' and the Bat said:

'Quite, thanks.'

'Good gracious,' said the Princess jumping. 'I didn't know bats could talk.'

'Every one can talk,' said the Bat, 'but not every one can hear other people talking. You have a fine ear as well as a fine heart.'

'Will your wing ever get well?' asked the Princess.

'I hope so,' said the Bat. 'But let's talk about you. Do you know why you wear a veil every day except Sundays?'

'Doesn't everybody?' asked Belinda.

'Only here in the palace,' said the Bat, 'that's on your account.'

'But why?' asked the Princess.

'Look in the glass and you'll know.'

'But it's wicked to look in the glass except on Sundays—and besides they're all put away,' said the Princess.

'If I were you,' said the Bat, 'I should go up into the attic where the youngest kitchenmaid sleeps. Feel between the thatch and the wall just above her pillow, and you'll find a little round looking-glass. But come back here before you look at it.'

The Princess did exactly what the Bat told her to do, and when she had come back into the parlour and shut the door she looked in the little round glass that the youngest kitchen-maid's sweetheart had given her. And when she saw her ugly, ugly, ugly face—for you must remember she had been growing uglier every day since she was born—she screamed and then she said:

'That's not me, it's a horrid picture.'

'It is you, though,' said the Bat firmly but kindly; 'and now you see why you wear a veil all the week—and only look in the glass on Sunday.'

'But why,' asked the Princess in tears, 'why don't I look like that in the Sunday looking-glasses?'

'Because you aren't like that on Sundays,' the Bat replied. 'Come,' it went on, 'stop crying. I didn't tell you the dread secret of your ugliness just to make you cry—but because I know the way for you to be as pretty all the week as you are on Sundays, and since you've been so kind to me I'll tell you. Sit down close beside me, it fatigues me to speak loud.'

The Princess did, and listened through her veil and her tears, while the Bat told her all that I began this story by telling you.

'My great-great-great-great-grandfather heard the tale years ago,' he said, 'up in the dark, dusty, beautiful, comfortable, cobwebby belfry, and I have heard scraps of it myself when the evil Bell-people were quarrelling, or talking in their sleep, lazy things!'

'It's very good of you to tell me all this,' said Belinda, 'but what am I to do?'

'You must find the bell that doesn't ring, and can't ring, and never will ring, and wasn't made to ring.'

'If I were a prince,' said the Princess, 'I could go out and seek my fortune.'

'Princesses have fortunes as well as princes,' said the Bat.

'But father and mother would never let me go and look for mine.'

'Think!' said the Bat, 'perhaps you'll find a way.'

So Belinda thought and thought. And at last she got the book that had the portraits of eligible princes in it, and she wrote to the prince who had the christening curse—and this is what she said:

'Princess Belinda of Carrillon-land is not afraid of christening curses. If Prince Bellamant would like to marry her he had better apply to her Royal Father in the usual way.

'P.S.—I have seen your portrait.'

When the Prince got this letter he was very pleased, and wrote at once for Princess Belinda's likeness. Of course they sent him a picture of her Sunday face, which was the most beautiful face in the world. As soon as he saw it he knew that this was not only the most beautiful face in the world, but the dearest, so he wrote to her father by the next post—applying for her hand in the usual way and enclosing the most respectable references. The King told the Princess.

'Come,' said he, 'what do you say to this young man?'

And the Princess, of course, said, 'Yes, please.'

So the wedding-day was fixed for the first Sunday in June.

But when the Prince arrived with all his glorious following of courtiers and men-at-arms, with two pink peacocks and a crown-case full of diamonds for his bride, he absolutely refused to be married on a Sunday. Nor would he give any reason for his refusal. And then the King lost his temper and broke off the match, and the Prince went away.

But he did not go very far. That night he bribed a page-boy to show him which was the Princess's room, and he climbed up by the jasmine through the dark rose-scented night, and tapped at the window.

'Who's dhere?' said the Princess inside in the dark.

'Me,' said the Prince in the dark outside.

'Thed id wasnd't true?' said the Princess. 'They toad be you'd ridded away.'

'What a cold you've got, my Princess,' said the Prince hanging on by the jasmine boughs.

'It's not a cold,' sniffed the Princess.

'Then ... oh you dear ... were you crying because you thought I'd gone?' he said.

'I suppose so,' said she.

He said, 'You dear!' again, and kissed her hands.

'Why wouldn't you be married on a Sunday?' she asked.

'It's the curse, dearest,' he explained, 'I couldn't tell any one but you. The fact is Malevola wasn't asked to my christening so she doomed me to be ... well, she said "moderately good-looking all the week, and too ugly for words on Sundays." So you see! You will be married on a week-day, won't you?'

'But I can't,' said the Princess, 'because I've got a curse too—only I'm ugly all the week and pretty on Sundays.'

'How extremely tiresome,' said the Prince, 'but can't you be cured?'

'Oh yes,' said the Princess, and told him how. 'And you,' she asked, 'is yours quite incurable?'

'Not at all,' he answered, 'I've only got to stay under water for five minutes and the spell will be broken. But you see, beloved, the difficulty is that I can't do it. I've practised regularly, from a boy, in the sea, and in the swimming bath, and even in my wash-hand basin—hours at a time I've practised—but I never can keep under more than two minutes.'

'Oh dear,' said the Princess, 'this is dreadful.'

'It is rather trying,' the Prince answered.

'You're sure you like me,' she asked suddenly, 'now you know that I'm only pretty once a week?'

'I'd die for you,' said he.

'Then I'll tell you what. Send all your courtiers away, and take a situation as under-gardener here—I know we want one. And then every night I'll climb down the jasmine and we'll go out together and seek our fortune. I'm sure we shall find it.'

And they did go out. The very next night, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next. And they did not find their fortunes, but they got fonder and fonder of each other. They could not see each other's faces, but they held hands as they went along through the dark.

And on the seventh night, as they passed by a house that showed chinks of light through its shutters, they heard a bell being rung outside for supper, a bell with a very loud and beautiful voice. But instead of saying—

'Supper's ready,' as any one would have expected, the bell was saying—

Ding dong dell! I could tell Where you ought to go To break the spell.

Then some one left off ringing the bell, so of course it couldn't say any more. So the two went on. A little way down the road a cow-bell tinkled behind the wet hedge of the lane. And it said—not, 'Here I am, quite safe,' as a cow-bell should, but—

Ding dong dell All will be well If you...

Then the cow stopped walking and began to eat, so the bell couldn't say any more. The Prince and Princess went on, and you will not be surprised to hear that they heard the voices of five more bells that night. The next was a school-bell. The schoolmaster's little boy thought it would be fun to ring it very late at night—but his father came and caught him before the bell could say any more than—

Ding a dong dell You can break up the spell By taking...

So that was no good.

Then there were the three bells that were the sign over the door of an inn where people were happily dancing to a fiddle, because there was a wedding. These bells said:

We are the Merry three Bells, bells, bells. You are two To undo Spells, spells, spells...

Then the wind who was swinging the bells suddenly thought of an appointment he had made with a pine forest, to get up an entertaining imitation of sea-waves for the benefit of the forest nymphs who had never been to the seaside, and he went off—so, of course, the bells couldn't ring any more, and the Prince and Princess went on down the dark road.

There was a cottage and the Princess pulled her veil closely over her face, for yellow light streamed from its open door—and it was a Wednesday.

Inside a little boy was sitting on the floor—quite a little boy—he ought to have been in bed long before, and I don't know why he wasn't. And he was ringing a little tinkling bell that had dropped off a sleigh.

And this little bell said:

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, I'm a little sleigh-bell, But I know what I know, and I'll tell, tell, tell. Find the Enchanter of the Ringing Well, He will show you how to break the spell, spell, spell. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, I'm a little sleigh-bell, But I know what I know....

And so on, over and over, again and again, because the little boy was quite contented to go on shaking his sleigh-bell for ever and ever.

'So now we know,' said the Prince, 'isn't that glorious?'

'Yes, very, but where's the Enchanter of the Ringing Well?' said the Princess doubtfully.

'Oh, I've got his address in my pocket-book,' said the Prince. 'He's my god-father. He was one of the references I gave your father.'

So the next night the Prince brought a horse to the garden, and he and the Princess mounted, and rode, and rode, and rode, and in the grey dawn they came to Wonderwood, and in the very middle of that the Magician's Palace stands.

The Princess did not like to call on a perfect stranger so very early in the morning, so they decided to wait a little and look about them.

The castle was very beautiful, decorated with a conventional design of bells and bell ropes, carved in white stone.

Luxuriant plants of American bell-vine covered the drawbridge and portcullis. On a green lawn in front of the castle was a well, with a curious bell-shaped covering suspended over it. The lovers leaned over the mossy fern-grown wall of the well, and, looking down, they could see that the narrowness of the well only lasted for a few feet, and below that it spread into a cavern where water lay in a big pool.

'What cheer?' said a pleasant voice behind them. It was the Enchanter, an early riser, like Darwin was, and all other great scientific men.

They told him what cheer.

'But,' Prince Bellamant ended, 'it's really no use. I can't keep under water more than two minutes however much I try. And my precious Belinda's not likely to find any silly old bell that doesn't ring, and can't ring, and never will ring, and was never made to ring.'

'Ho, ho,' laughed the Enchanter with the soft full laughter of old age. 'You've come to the right shop. Who told you?'

'The bells,' said Belinda.

'Ah, yes.' The old man frowned kindly upon them. 'You must be very fond of each other?'

'We are,' said the two together.

'Yes,' the Enchanter answered, 'because only true lovers can hear the true speech of the bells, and then only when they're together. Well, there's the bell!'

He pointed to the covering of the well, went forward, and touched some lever or spring. The covering swung out from above the well, and hung over the grass grey with the dew of dawn.

'That?' said Bellamant.

'That,' said his god-father. 'It doesn't ring, and it can't ring, and it never will ring, and it was never made to ring. Get into it.'

'Eh?' said Bellamant forgetting his manners.

The old man took a hand of each and led them under the bell.

They looked up. It had windows of thick glass, and high seats about four feet from its edge, running all round inside.

'Take your seats,' said the Enchanter.

Bellamant lifted his Princess to the bench and leaped up beside her.

'Now,' said the old man, 'sit still, hold each other's hands, and for your lives don't move.'

He went away, and next moment they felt the bell swing in the air. It swung round till once more it was over the well, and then it went down, down, down.

'I'm not afraid, with you,' said Belinda, because she was, dreadfully.

Down went the bell. The glass windows leaped into light, looking through them the two could see blurred glories of lamps in the side of the cave, magic lamps, or perhaps merely electric, which, curiously enough have ceased to seem magic to us nowadays. Then with a plop the lower edge of the bell met the water, the water rose inside it, a little, then not any more. And the bell went down, down, and above their heads the green water lapped against the windows of the bell.

'You're under water—if we stay five minutes,' Belinda whispered.

'Yes, dear,' said Bellamant, and pulled out his ruby-studded chronometer.

'It's five minutes for you, but oh!' cried Belinda, 'it's now for me. For I've found the bell that doesn't ring, and can't ring, and never will ring, and wasn't made to ring. Oh Bellamant dearest, it's Thursday. Have I got my Sunday face?'

She tore away her veil, and his eyes, fixed upon her face, could not leave it.

'Oh dream of all the world's delight,' he murmured, 'how beautiful you are.'

Neither spoke again till a sudden little shock told them that the bell was moving up again.

'Nonsense,' said Bellamant, 'it's not five minutes.'

But when they looked at the ruby-studded chronometer, it was nearly three-quarters of an hour. But then, of course, the well was enchanted!

'Magic? Nonsense,' said the old man when they hung about him with thanks and pretty words. 'It's only a diving-bell. My own invention.'

* * * * *

So they went home and were married, and the Princess did not wear a veil at the wedding. She said she had had enough veils to last her time.

* * * * *

And a year and a day after that a little daughter was born to them.

'Now sweetheart,' said King Bellamant—he was king now because the old king and queen had retired from the business, and were keeping pigs and hens in the country as they had always planned to do—'dear sweetheart and life's love, I am going to ring the bells with my own hands, to show how glad I am for you, and for the child, and for our good life together.'

So he went out. It was very dark, because the baby princess had chosen to be born at midnight.

The King went out to the belfry, that stood in the great, bare, quiet, moonlit square, and he opened the door. The furry-pussy bell-ropes, like huge caterpillars, hung on the first loft. The King began to climb the curly-wurly stone stair. And as he went up he heard a noise, the strangest noises, stamping and rustling and deep breathings.

He stood still in the ringers' loft where the pussy-furry caterpillary bell-robes hung, and from the belfry above he heard the noise of strong fighting, and mixed with it the sound of voices angry and desperate, but with a noble note that thrilled the soul of the hearer like the sound of the trumpet in battle. And the voices cried:

Down, down—away, away, When good has come ill may not stay, Out, out, into the night, The belfry bells are ours by right!

And the words broke and joined again, like water when it flows against the piers of a bridge. 'Down, down——.' 'Ill may not stay——.' 'Good has come——.' 'Away, away——.' And the joining came like the sound of the river that flows free again.

Out, out, into the night, The belfry bells are ours by right!

And then, as King Bellamant stood there, thrilled and yet, as it were, turned to stone, by the magic of this conflict that raged above him, there came a sweeping rush down the belfry ladder. The lantern he carried showed him a rout of little, dark, evil people, clothed in dust and cobwebs, that scurried down the wooden steps gnashing their teeth and growling in the bitterness of a deserved defeat. They passed and there was silence. Then the King flew from rope to rope pulling lustily, and from above, the bells answered in their own clear beautiful voices—because the good Bell-folk had driven out the usurpers and had come to their own again.

Ring-a-ring-a-ring-a-ring-a-ring! Ring, bell! A little baby comes on earth to dwell. Ring, bell! Sound, bell! Sound! Swell! Ring for joy and wish her well! May her life tell No tale of ill-spell! Ring, bell! Joy, bell! Love, bell! Ring!

* * * * *

'But I don't see,' said King Bellamant, when he had told Queen Belinda all about it, 'how it was that I came to hear them. The Enchanter of the Ringing Well said that only lovers could hear what the bells had to say, and then only when they were together.'

'You silly dear boy,' said Queen Belinda, cuddling the baby princess close under her chin, 'we are lovers, aren't we? And you don't suppose I wasn't with you when you went to ring the bells for our baby—my heart and soul anyway—all of me that matters!'

'Yes,' said the King, 'of course you were. That accounts!'



VIII

JUSTNOWLAND

'Auntie! No, no, no! I will be good. Oh, I will!' The little weak voice came from the other side of the locked attic door.

'You should have thought of that before,' said the strong, sharp voice outside.

'I didn't mean to be naughty. I didn't, truly.'

'It's not what you mean, miss, it's what you do. I'll teach you not to mean, my lady.'

The bitter irony of the last words dried the child's tears. 'Very well, then,' she screamed, 'I won't be good; I won't try to be good. I thought you'd like your nasty old garden weeded. I only did it to please you. How was I to know it was turnips? It looked just like weeds.' Then came a pause, then another shriek. 'Oh, Auntie, don't! Oh, let me out—let me out!'

'I'll not let you out till I've broken your spirit, my girl; you may rely on that.'

The sharp voice stopped abruptly on a high note; determined feet in strong boots sounded on the stairs—fainter, fainter; a door slammed below with a dreadful definiteness, and Elsie was left alone, to wonder how soon her spirit would break—for at no less a price, it appeared, could freedom be bought.

The outlook seemed hopeless. The martyrs and heroines, with whom Elsie usually identified herself, their spirit had never been broken; not chains nor the rack nor the fiery stake itself had even weakened them. Imprisonment in an attic would to them have been luxury compared with the boiling oil and the smoking faggots and all the intimate cruelties of mysterious instruments of steel and leather, in cold dungeons, lit only by the dull flare of torches and the bright, watchful eyes of inquisitors.

A month in the house of 'Auntie' self-styled, and really only an unrelated Mrs. Staines, paid to take care of the child, had held but one interest—Foxe's Book of Martyrs. It was a horrible book—the thick oleographs, their guarding sheets of tissue paper sticking to the prints like bandages to a wound.... Elsie knew all about wounds: she had had one herself. Only a scalded hand, it is true, but a wound is a wound, all the world over. It was a book that made you afraid to go to bed; but it was a book you could not help reading. And now it seemed as though it might at last help, and not merely sicken and terrify. But the help was frail, and broke almost instantly on the thought—'They were brave because they were good: how can I be brave when there's nothing to be brave about except me not knowing the difference between turnips and weeds?'

She sank down, a huddled black bunch on the bare attic floor, and called wildly to some one who could not answer her. Her frock was black because the one who always used to answer could not answer any more. And her father was in India, where you cannot answer, or even hear, your little girl, however much she cries in England.

'I won't cry,' said Elsie, sobbing as violently as ever. 'I can be brave, even if I'm not a saint but only a turnip-mistaker. I'll be a Bastille prisoner, and tame a mouse!' She dried her eyes, though the bosom of the black frock still heaved like the sea after a storm, and looked about for a mouse to tame. One could not begin too soon. But unfortunately there seemed to be no mouse at liberty just then. There were mouse-holes right enough, all round the wainscot, and in the broad, time-worn boards of the old floor. But never a mouse.

'Mouse, mouse!' Elsie called softly. 'Mousie, mousie, come and be tamed!'

Not a mouse replied.

The attic was perfectly empty and dreadfully clean. The other attic, Elsie knew, had lots of interesting things in it—old furniture and saddles, and sacks of seed potatoes,—but in this attic nothing. Not so much as a bit of string on the floor that one could make knots in, or twist round one's finger till it made the red ridges that are so interesting to look at afterwards; not even a piece of paper in the draughty, cold fireplace that one could make paper boats of, or prick letters in with a pin or the tag of one's shoe-laces.

As she stooped to see whether under the grate some old match-box or bit of twig might have escaped the broom, she saw suddenly what she had wanted most—a mouse. It was lying on its side. She put out her hand very slowly and gently, and whispered in her softest tones, 'Wake up, Mousie, wake up, and come and be tamed.' But the mouse never moved. And when she took it in her hand it was cold.

'Oh,' she moaned, 'you're dead, and now I can never tame you'; and she sat on the cold hearth and cried again, with the dead mouse in her lap.

'Don't cry,' said somebody. 'I'll find you something to tame—if you really want it.'

Elsie started and saw the head of a black bird peering at her through the square opening that leads to the chimney. The edges of him looked ragged and rainbow-coloured, but that was because she saw him through tears. To a tearless eye he was black and very smooth and sleek.

'Oh!' she said, and nothing more.

'Quite so,' said the bird politely. 'You are surprised to hear me speak, but your surprise will be, of course, much less when I tell you that I am really a Prime Minister condemned by an Enchanter to wear the form of a crow till ... till I can get rid of it.'

'Oh!' said Elsie.

'Yes, indeed,' said the Crow, and suddenly grew smaller till he could come comfortably through the square opening. He did this, perched on the top bar, and hopped to the floor. And there he got bigger and bigger, and bigger and bigger and bigger. Elsie had scrambled to her feet, and then a black little girl of eight and of the usual size stood face to face with a crow as big as a man, and no doubt as old. She found words then.

'Oh, don't!' she cried. 'Don't get any bigger. I can't bear it.'

'I can't do it,' said the Crow kindly, 'so that's all right. I thought you'd better get used to seeing rather large crows before I take you to Crownowland. We are all life-size there.'

'But a crow's life-size isn't a man's life-size,' Elsie managed to say.

'Oh yes, it is—when it's an enchanted Crow,' the bird replied. 'That makes all the difference. Now you were saying you wanted to tame something. If you'll come with me to Crownowland I'll show you something worth taming.'

'Is Crow-what's-its-name a nice place?' Elsie asked cautiously. She was, somehow, not so very frightened now.

'Very,' said the Crow.

'Then perhaps I shall like it so much I sha'n't want to be taming things.'

'Oh yes, you will, when you know how much depends on it.'

'But I shouldn't like,' said Elsie, 'to go up the chimney. This isn't my best frock, of course, but still....'

'Quite so,' said the Crow. 'I only came that way for fun, and because I can fly. You shall go in by the chief gate of the kingdom, like a lady. Do come.'

But Elsie still hesitated. 'What sort of thing is it you want me to tame?' she said doubtfully.

The enormous crow hesitated. 'A—a sort of lizard,' it said at last. 'And if you can only tame it so that it will do what you tell it to, you'll save the whole kingdom, and we'll put up a statue to you; but not in the People's Park, unless they wish it,' the bird added mysteriously.

'I should like to save a kingdom,' said Elsie, 'and I like lizards. I've seen lots of them in India.'

'Then you'll come?' said the Crow.

'Yes. But how do we go?'

'There are only two doors out of this world into another,' said the Crow. 'I'll take you through the nearest. Allow me!' It put its wing round her so that her face nestled against the black softness of the under-wing feathers. It was warm and dark and sleepy there, and very comfortable. For a moment she seemed to swim easily in a soft sea of dreams. Then, with a little shock, she found herself standing on a marble terrace, looking out over a city far more beautiful and wonderful than she had ever seen or imagined. The great man-sized Crow was by her side.

'Now,' it said, pointing with the longest of its long black wing-feathers, 'you see this beautiful city?'

'Yes,' said Elsie, 'of course I do.'

'Well ... I hardly like to tell you the story,' said the Crow, 'but it's a long time ago, and I hope you won't think the worse of us—because we're really very sorry.'

'If you're really sorry,' said Elsie primly, 'of course it's all right.'

'Unfortunately it isn't,' said the Crow. 'You see the great square down there?'

Elsie looked down on a square of green trees, broken a little towards the middle.

'Well, that's where the ... where it is—what you've got to tame, you know.'

'But what did you do that was wrong?'

'We were unkind,' said the Crow slowly, 'and unjust, and ungenerous. We had servants and workpeople doing everything for us; we had nothing to do but be kind. And we weren't.'

'Dear me,' said Elsie feebly.

'We had several warnings,' said the Crow. 'There was an old parchment, and it said just how you ought to behave and all that. But we didn't care what it said. I was Court Magician as well as Prime Minister, and I ought to have known better, but I didn't. We all wore frock-coats and high hats then,' he added sadly.

'Go on,' said Elsie, her eyes wandering from one beautiful building to another of the many that nestled among the trees of the city.

'And the old parchment said that if we didn't behave well our bodies would grow like our souls. But we didn't think so. And then all in a minute they did—and we were crows, and our bodies were as black as our souls. Our souls are quite white now,' it added reassuringly.

'But what was the dreadful thing you'd done?'

'We'd been unkind to the people who worked for us—not given them enough food or clothes or fire, and at last we took away even their play. There was a big park that the people played in, and we built a wall round it and took it for ourselves, and the King was going to set a statue of himself up in the middle. And then before we could begin to enjoy it we were turned into big black crows; and the working people into big white pigeons—and they can go where they like, but we have to stay here till we've tamed the.... We never can go into the park, until we've settled the thing that guards it. And that thing's a big big lizard—in fact ... it's a dragon!'

'Oh!' cried Elsie; but she was not as frightened as the Crow seemed to expect. Because every now and then she had felt sure that she was really safe in her own bed, and that this was a dream. It was not a dream, but the belief that it was made her very brave, and she felt quite sure that she could settle a dragon, if necessary—a dream dragon, that is. And the rest of the time she thought about Foxe's Book of Martyrs and what a heroine she now had the chance to be.

'You want me to kill it?' she asked.

'Oh no! To tame it,' said the Crow.

'We've tried all sorts of means—long whips, like people tame horses with, and red-hot bars, such as lion-tamers use—and it's all been perfectly useless; and there the dragon lives, and will live till some one can tame him and get him to follow them like a tame fawn, and eat out of their hand.'

'What does the dragon like to eat?' Elsie asked.

'Crows,' replied the other in an uncomfortable whisper. 'At least I've never known it eat anything else!'

'Am I to try to tame it now?' Elsie asked.

'Oh dear no,' said the Crow. 'We'll have a banquet in your honour, and you shall have tea with the Princess.'

'How do you know who is a princess and who's not, if you're all crows?' Elsie cried.

'How do you know one human being from another?' the Crow replied. 'Besides ... Come on to the Palace.'

It led her along the terrace, and down some marble steps to a small arched door. 'The tradesmen's entrance,' it explained. 'Excuse it—the courtiers are crowding in by the front door.' Then through long corridors and passages they went, and at last into the throne-room. Many crows stood about in respectful attitudes. On the golden throne, leaning a gloomy head upon the first joint of his right wing, the Sovereign of Crownowland was musing dejectedly. A little girl of about Elsie's age sat on the steps of the throne nursing a handsome doll.

'Who is the little girl?' Elsie asked.

'Curtsey! That's the Princess,' the Prime Minister Crow whispered; and Elsie made the best curtsey she could think of in such a hurry. 'She wasn't wicked enough to be turned into a crow, or poor enough to be turned into a pigeon, so she remains a dear little girl, just as she always was.'

The Princess dropped her doll and ran down the steps of the throne to meet Elsie.

'You dear!' she said. 'You've come to play with me, haven't you? All the little girls I used to play with have turned into crows, and their beaks are so awkward at doll's tea-parties, and wings are no good to nurse dollies with. Let's have a doll's tea-party now, shall we?'

'May we?' Elsie looked at the Crow King, who nodded his head hopelessly. So, hand in hand, they went.

I wonder whether you have ever had the run of a perfectly beautiful palace and a nursery absolutely crammed with all the toys you ever had or wanted to have: dolls' houses, dolls' china tea-sets, rocking-horses, bricks, nine-pins, paint-boxes, conjuring tricks, pewter dinner-services, and any number of dolls—all most agreeable and distinguished. If you have, you may perhaps be able faintly to imagine Elsie's happiness. And better than all the toys was the Princess Perdona—so gentle and kind and jolly, full of ideas for games, and surrounded by the means for playing them. Think of it, after that bare attic, with not even a bit of string to play with, and no company but the poor little dead mouse!

There is no room in this story to tell you of all the games they had. I can only say that the time went by so quickly that they never noticed it going, and were amazed when the Crown nursemaid brought in the royal tea-tray. Tea was a beautiful meal—with pink iced cake in it.

Now, all the time that these glorious games had been going on, and this magnificent tea, the wisest crows of Crownowland had been holding a council. They had decided that there was no time like the present, and that Elsie had better try to tame the dragon soon as late. 'But,' the King said, 'she mustn't run any risks. A guard of fifty stalwart crows must go with her, and if the dragon shows the least temper, fifty crows must throw themselves between her and danger, even if it cost fifty-one crow-lives. For I myself will lead that band. Who will volunteer?'

Volunteers, to the number of some thousands, instantly stepped forward, and the Field Marshal selected fifty of the strongest crows.

And then, in the pleasant pinkness of the sunset, Elsie was led out on to the palace steps, where the King made a speech and said what a heroine she was, and how like Joan of Arc. And the crows who had gathered from all parts of the town cheered madly. Did you ever hear crows cheering? It is a wonderful sound.

Then Elsie got into a magnificent gilt coach, drawn by eight white horses, with a crow at the head of each horse. The Princess sat with her on the blue velvet cushions and held her hand.

'I know you'll do it,' said she; 'you're so brave and clever, Elsie!'

And Elsie felt braver than before, although now it did not seem so like a dream. But she thought of the martyrs, and held Perdona's hand very tight.

At the gates of the green park the Princess kissed and hugged her new friend—her state crown, which she had put on in honour of the occasion, got pushed quite on one side in the warmth of her embrace—and Elsie stepped out of the carriage. There was a great crowd of crows round the park gates, and every one cheered and shouted 'Speech, speech!'

Elsie got as far as 'Ladies and gentlemen—Crows, I mean,' and then she could not think of anything more, so she simply added, 'Please, I'm ready.'

I wish you could have heard those crows cheer.

But Elsie wouldn't have the escort.

'It's very kind,' she said, 'but the dragon only eats crows, and I'm not a crow, thank goodness—I mean I'm not a crow—and if I've got to be brave I'd like to be brave, and none of you to get eaten. If only some one will come with me to show me the way and then run back as hard as he can when we get near the dragon. Please!'

'If only one goes I shall be the one,' said the King. And he and Elsie went through the great gates side by side. She held the end of his wing, which was the nearest they could get to hand in hand.

The crowd outside waited in breathless silence. Elsie and the King went on through the winding paths of the People's Park. And by the winding paths they came at last to the Dragon. He lay very peacefully on a great stone slab, his enormous bat-like wings spread out on the grass and his goldy-green scales glittering in the pretty pink sunset light.

'Go back!' said Elsie.

'No,' said the King.

'If you don't,' said Elsie, 'I won't go on. Seeing a crow might rouse him to fury, or give him an appetite, or something. Do—do go!'

So he went, but not far. He hid behind a tree, and from its shelter he watched.

Elsie drew a long breath. Her heart was thumping under the black frock. 'Suppose,' she thought, 'he takes me for a crow!' But she thought how yellow her hair was, and decided that the dragon would be certain to notice that.

'Quick march!' she said to herself, 'remember Joan of Arc,' and walked right up to the dragon. It never moved, but watched her suspiciously out of its bright green eyes.

'Dragon dear!' she said in her clear little voice.

'Eh?' said the dragon, in tones of extreme astonishment.

'Dragon dear,' she repeated, 'do you like sugar?'

'Yes,' said the dragon.

'Well, I've brought you some. You won't hurt me if I bring it to you?'

The dragon violently shook its vast head.

'It's not much,' said Elsie, 'but I saved it at tea-time. Four lumps. Two for each of my mugs of milk.'

She laid the sugar on the stone slab by the dragon's paw.

It turned its head towards the sugar. The pinky sunset light fell on its face, and Elsie saw that it was weeping! Great fat tears as big as prize pears were coursing down its wrinkled cheeks.

'Oh, don't,' said Elsie, 'don't cry! Poor dragon, what's the matter?'

'Oh!' sobbed the dragon, 'I'm only so glad you've come. I—I've been so lonely. No one to love me. You do love me, don't you?'

'I—I'm sure I shall when I know you better,' said Elsie kindly.

'Give me a kiss, dear,' said the dragon, sniffing.

It is no joke to kiss a dragon. But Elsie did it—somewhere on the hard green wrinkles of its forehead.

'Oh, thank you,' said the dragon, brushing away its tears with the tip of its tail. 'That breaks the charm. I can move now. And I've got back all my lost wisdom. Come along—I do want my tea!'

So, to the waiting crowd at the gate came Elsie and the dragon side by side. And at sight of the dragon, tamed, a great shout went up from the crowd; and at that shout each one in the crowd turned quickly to the next one—for it was the shout of men, and not of crows. Because at the first sight of the dragon, tamed, they had left off being crows for ever and ever, and once again were men.

The King came running through the gates, his royal robes held high, so that he shouldn't trip over them, and he too was no longer a crow, but a man.

And what did Elsie feel after being so brave? Well, she felt that she would like to cry, and also to laugh, and she felt that she loved not only the dragon, but every man, woman, and child in the whole world—even Mrs. Staines.

She rode back to the Palace on the dragon's back.

And as they went the crowd of citizens who had been crows met the crowd of citizens who had been pigeons, and these were poor men in poor clothes.

It would have done you good to see how the ones who had been rich and crows ran to meet the ones who had been pigeons and poor.

'Come and stay at my house, brother,' they cried to those who had no homes. 'Brother, I have many coats, come and choose some,' they cried to the ragged. 'Come and feast with me!' they cried to all. And the rich and the poor went off arm in arm to feast and be glad that night, and the next day to work side by side. 'For,' said the King, speaking with his hand on the neck of the tamed dragon, 'our land has been called Crownowland. But we are no longer crows. We are men: and we will be Just men. And our country shall be called Justnowland for ever and ever. And for the future we shall not be rich and poor, but fellow-workers, and each will do his best for his brothers and his own city. And your King shall be your servant!'

I don't know how they managed this, but no one seemed to think that there would be any difficulty about it when the King mentioned it; and when people really make up their minds to do anything, difficulties do most oddly disappear.

Wonderful rejoicings there were. The city was hung with flags and lamps. Bands played—the performers a little out of practice, because, of course, crows can't play the flute or the violin or the trombone—but the effect was very gay indeed. Then came the time—it was quite dark—when the King rose up on his throne and spoke; and Elsie, among all her new friends, listened with them to his words.

'Our deliverer Elsie,' he said, 'was brought hither by the good magic of our Chief Mage and Prime Minister. She has removed the enchantment that held us; and the dragon, now that he has had his tea and recovered from the shock of being kindly treated, turns out to be the second strongest magician in the world,—and he will help us and advise us, so long as we remember that we are all brothers and fellow-workers. And now comes the time when our Elsie must return to her own place, or another go in her stead. But we cannot send back our heroine, our deliverer.' (Long, loud cheering.) 'So one shall take her place. My daughter——'

The end of the sentence was lost in shouts of admiration. But Elsie stood up, small and white in her black frock, and said, 'No thank you. Perdona would simply hate it. And she doesn't know my daddy. He'll fetch me away from Mrs. Staines some day....'

The thought of her daddy, far away in India, of the loneliness of Willow Farm, where now it would be night in that horrible bare attic where the poor dead untameable little mouse was, nearly choked Elsie. It was so bright and light and good and kind here. And India was so far away. Her voice stayed a moment on a broken note.

'I—I....' Then she spoke firmly.

'Thank you all so much,' she said—'so very much. I do love you all, and it's lovely here. But, please, I'd like to go home now.'

The Prime Minister, in a silence full of love and understanding, folded his dark cloak round her.

* * * * *

It was dark in the attic. Elsie crouching alone in the blackness by the fireplace where the dead mouse had been, put out her hand to touch its cold fur.

* * * * *

There were wheels on the gravel outside—the knocker swung strongly—'Rat-tat-tat-tat—Tat! Tat!' A pause—voices—hasty feet in strong boots sounded on the stairs, the key turned in the lock. The door opened a dazzling crack, then fully, to the glare of a lamp carried by Mrs. Staines.

'Come down at once. I'm sure you're good now,' she said, in a great hurry and in a new honeyed voice.

But there were other feet on the stairs—a step that Elsie knew. 'Where's my girl?' the voice she knew cried cheerfully. But under the cheerfulness Elsie heard something other and dearer. 'Where's my girl?'

After all, it takes less than a month to come from India to the house in England where one's heart is.

Out of the bare attic and the darkness Elsie leapt into light, into arms she knew. 'Oh, my daddy, my daddy!' she cried. 'How glad I am I came back!'



IX

THE RELATED MUFF

We had never seen our cousin Sidney till that Christmas Eve, and we didn't want to see him then, and we didn't like him when we did see him. He was just dumped down into the middle of us by mother, at a time when it would have been unkind to her to say how little we wanted him.

We knew already that there wasn't to be any proper Christmas for us, because Aunt Ellie—the one who always used to send the necklaces and carved things from India, and remembered everybody's birthday—had come home ill. Very ill she was, at a hotel in London, and mother had to go to her, and, of course, father was away with his ship.

And then after we had said good-bye to mother, and told her how sorry we were, we were left to ourselves, and told each other what a shame it was, and no presents or anything. And then mother came suddenly back in a cab, and we all shouted 'Hooray' when we saw the cab stop, and her get out of it. And then we saw she was getting something out of the cab, and our hearts leapt up like the man's in the piece of school poetry when he beheld a rainbow in the sky—because we thought she had remembered about the presents, and the thing she was getting out of the cab was them.

Of course it was not—it was Sidney, very thin and yellow, and looking as sullen as a pig.

We opened the front door. Mother didn't even come in. She just said, 'Here's your Cousin Sidney. Be nice to him and give him a good time, there's darlings. And don't forget he's your visitor, so be very extra nice to him.'

I have sometimes thought it was the fault of what mother said about the visitor that made what did happen happen, but I am almost sure really that it was the fault of us, though I did not see it at the time, and even now I'm sure we didn't mean to be unkind. Quite the opposite. But the events of life are very confusing, especially when you try to think what made you do them, and whether you really meant to be naughty or not. Quite often it is not—but it turns out just the same.

When the cab had carried mother away—Hilda said it was like a dragon carrying away a queen—we said, 'How do you do' to our Cousin Sidney, who replied, 'Quite well, thank you.'

And then, curiously enough, no one could think of anything more to say.

Then Rupert—which is me—remembered that about being a visitor, and he said:

'Won't you come into the drawing-room?'

He did when he had taken off his gloves and overcoat. There was a fire in the drawing-room, because we had been going to have games there with mother, only the telegram came about Aunt Ellie.

So we all sat on chairs in the drawing-room, and thought of nothing to say harder than ever.

Hilda did say, 'How old are you?' but, of course, we knew the answer to that. It was ten.

And Hugh said, 'Do you like England or India best?'

And our cousin replied, 'India ever so much, thank you.'

I never felt such a duffer. It was awful. With all the millions of interesting things that there are to say at other times, and I couldn't think of one. At last I said, 'Do you like games?'



And our cousin replied, 'Some games I do,' in a tone that made me sure that the games he liked wouldn't be our kind, but some wild Indian sort that we didn't know.

I could see that the others were feeling just like me, and I knew we could not go on like this till tea-time. And yet I didn't see any other way to go on in. It was Hilda who cut the Gorgeous knot at last. She said:

'Hugh, let you and I go and make a lovely surprise for Rupert and Sidney.'

And before I could think of any way of stopping them without being downright rude to our new cousin, they had fled the scene, just like any old conspirators. Rupert—me, I mean—was left alone with the stranger. I said:

'Is there anything you'd like to do?'

And he said, 'No, thank you.'

Then neither of us said anything for a bit—and I could hear the others shrieking with laughter in the hall.

I said, 'I wonder what the surprise will be like.'

He said, 'Yes, I wonder'; but I could tell from his tone that he did not wonder a bit.

The others were yelling with laughter. Have you ever noticed how very amused people always are when you're not there? If you're in bed—ill, or in disgrace, or anything—it always sounds like far finer jokes than ever occur when you are not out of things.

'Do you like reading?' said I—who am Rupert—in the tones of despair.

'Yes,' said the cousin.

'Then take a book,' I said hastily, for I really could not stand it another second, 'and you just read till the surprise is ready. I think I ought to go and help the others. I'm the eldest, you know.'

I did not wait—I suppose if you're ten you can choose a book for yourself—and I went.

Hilda's idea was just Indians, but I thought a wigwam would be nice. So we made one with the hall table and the fur rugs off the floor. If everything had been different, and Aunt Ellie hadn't been ill, we were to have had turkey for dinner. The turkey's feathers were splendid for Indians, and the striped blankets off Hugh's and my beds, and all mother's beads. The hall is big like a room, and there was a fire. The afternoon passed like a beautiful dream. When Rupert had done his own feathering and blanketing, as well as brown paper moccasins, he helped the others. The tea-bell rang before we were quite dressed. We got Louisa to go up and tell our cousin that the surprise was ready, and we all got inside the wigwam. It was a very tight fit, with the feathers and the blankets.

He came down the stairs very slowly, reading all the time, and when he got to the mat at the bottom of the stairs we burst forth in all our war-paint from the wigwam. It upset, because Hugh and Hilda stuck between the table's legs, and it fell on the stone floor with quite a loud noise. The wild Indians picked themselves up out of the ruins and did the finest war-dance I've ever seen in front of my cousin Sidney.

He gave one little scream, and then sat down suddenly on the bottom steps. He leaned his head against the banisters and we thought he was admiring the war-dance, till Eliza, who had been laughing and making as much noise as any one, suddenly went up to him and shook him.

'Stop that noise,' she said to us, 'he's gone off into a dead faint.'

He had.

Of course we were very sorry and all that, but we never thought he'd be such a muff as to be frightened of three Red Indians and a wigwam that happened to upset. He was put to bed, and we had our teas.

'I wish we hadn't,' Hilda said.

'So do I,' said Hugh.

But Rupert said, 'No one could have expected a cousin of ours to be a chicken-hearted duffer. He's a muff. It's bad enough to have a muff in the house at all, and at Christmas time, too. But a related muff!'

Still the affair had cast a gloom, and we were glad when it was bed-time.

Next day was Christmas Day, and no presents, and nobody but the servants to wish a Merry Christmas to.

Our cousin Sidney came down to breakfast, and as it was Christmas Day Rupert bent his proud spirit to own he was sorry about the Indians.

Sidney said, 'It doesn't matter. I'm sorry too. Only I didn't expect it.'

We suggested two or three games, such as Parlour Cricket, National Gallery, and Grab—but Sidney said he would rather read. So we said would he mind if we played out the Indian game which we had dropped, out of politeness, when he fainted.

He said:

'I don't mind at all, now I know what it is you're up to. No, thank you, I'd rather read,' he added, in reply to Rupert's unselfish offer to dress him for the part of Sitting Bull.

So he read Treasure Island, and we fought on the stairs with no casualties except the gas globes, and then we scalped all the dolls—putting on paper scalps first because Hilda wished it—and we scalped Eliza as she passed through the hall—hers was a white scalp with lacey stuff on it and long streamers.



And when it was beginning to get dark we thought of flying machines. Of course Sidney wouldn't play at that either, and Hilda and Hugh were contented with paper wings—there were some rolls of rather decent yellow and pink crinkled paper that mother had bought to make lamp shades of. They made wings of this, and then they played at fairies up and down the stairs, while Sidney sat at the bottom of the stairs and went on reading Treasure Island. But Rupert was determined to have a flying machine, with real flipper-flappery wings, like at Hendon. So he got two brass fire-guards out of the spare room and mother's bedroom, and covered them with newspapers fastened on with string. Then he got a tea-tray and fastened it on to himself with rug-straps, and then he slipped his arms in between the string and the fire-guards, and went to the top of the stairs and shouting, 'Look out below there! Beware Flying Machines!' he sat down suddenly on the tray, and tobogganed gloriously down the stairs, flapping his fire-guard wings. It was a great success, and felt more like flying than anything he ever played at. But Hilda had not had time to look out thoroughly, because he did not wait any time between his warning and his descent. So that she was still fluttering, in the character of Queen of the Butterfly Fairies, about half-way down the stairs when the flying machine, composed of the two guards, the tea-tray, and Rupert, started from the top of them, and she could only get out of the way by standing back close against the wall. Unluckily the place where she was, was also the place where the gas was burning in a little recess. You remember we had broken the globe when we were playing Indians.

Now, of course, you know what happened, because you have read Harriett and the Matches, and all the rest of the stories that have been written to persuade children not to play with fire. No one was playing with fire that day, it is true, or doing anything really naughty at all—but however naughty we had been the thing that happened couldn't have been much worse. For the flying machine as it came rushing round the curve of the staircase banged against the legs of Hilda. She screamed and stumbled back. Her pink paper wings went into the gas that hadn't a globe. They flamed up, her hair frizzled, and her lace collar caught fire. Rupert could not do anything because he was held fast in his flying machine, and he and it were rolling painfully on the mat at the bottom of the stairs.



Hilda screamed.

I have since heard that a great yellow light fell on the pages of Treasure Island.

Next moment Treasure Island went spinning across the room. Sidney caught up the fur rug that was part of the wigwam, and as Hilda, screaming horribly, and with wings not of paper but of flames, rushed down the staircase, and stumbled over the flying machine, Sidney threw the rug over her, and rolled her over and over on the floor.

'Lie down!' he cried. 'Lie down! It's the only way.'

But somehow people never will lie down when their clothes are on fire, any more than they will lie still in the water if they think they are drowning, and some one is trying to save them. It came to something very like a fight. Hilda fought and struggled. Rupert got out of his fire-guards and added himself and his tea-tray to the scrimmage. Hugh slid down to the knob of the banisters and sat there yelling. The servants came rushing in.

But by that time the fire was out. And Sidney gasped out, 'It's all right. You aren't burned, Hilda, are you?'

Hilda was much too frightened to know whether she was burnt or not, but Eliza looked her over, and it turned out that only her neck was a little scorched, and a good deal of her hair frizzled off short.

Every one stood, rather breathless and pale, and every one's face was much dirtier than customary, except Hugh's, which he had, as usual, dirtied thoroughly quite early in the afternoon. Rupert felt perfectly awful, ashamed and proud and rather sick. 'You're a regular hero, Sidney,' he said—and it was not easy to say—'and yesterday I said you were a related muff. And I'm jolly sorry I did. Shake hands, won't you?'

Sidney hesitated.

'Too proud?' Rupert's feelings were hurt, and I should not wonder if he spoke rather fiercely.

'It's—it's a little burnt, I think,' said Sidney, 'don't be angry,' and he held out the left hand.

Rupert grasped it.

'I do beg your pardon,' he said, 'you are a hero!'

* * * * *

Sidney's hand was bad for ever so long, but we were tremendous chums after that.

It was when they'd done the hand up with scraped potato and salad oil—a great, big, fat, wet plaster of it—that I said to him:

'I don't care if you don't like games. Let's be pals.'

And he said, 'I do like games, but I couldn't care about anything with mother so ill. I know you'll think I'm a muff, but I'm not really, only I do love her so.'

And with that he began to cry, and I thumped him on the back, and told him exactly what a beast I knew I was, to comfort him.

When Aunt Ellie was well again we kept Christmas on the 6th of January, which used to be Christmas Day in middle-aged times.

Father came home before New Year, and he had a silver medal made, with a flame on one side, and on the other Sidney's name, and 'For Bravery.'

If I had not been tied up in fire-guards and tea-trays perhaps I should have thought of the rug and got the medal. But I do not grudge it to Sidney. He deserved it. And he is not a muff. I see now that a person might very well be frightened at finding Indians in the hall of a strange house, especially if the person had just come from the kind of India where the Indians are quite a different sort, and much milder, with no feathers and wigwams and war-dances, but only dusky features and University Degrees.



X

THE AUNT AND AMABEL

It is not pleasant to be a fish out of water. To be a cat in water is not what any one would desire. To be in a temper is uncomfortable. And no one can fully taste the joys of life if he is in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit. But by far the most uncomfortable thing to be in is disgrace, sometimes amusingly called Coventry by the people who are not in it.

We have all been there. It is a place where the heart sinks and aches, where familiar faces are clouded and changed, where any remark that one may tremblingly make is received with stony silence or with the assurance that nobody wants to talk to such a naughty child. If you are only in disgrace, and not in solitary confinement, you will creep about a house that is like the one you have had such jolly times in, and yet as unlike it as a bad dream is to a June morning. You will long to speak to people, and be afraid to speak. You will wonder whether there is anything you can do that will change things at all. You have said you are sorry, and that has changed nothing. You will wonder whether you are to stay for ever in this desolate place, outside all hope and love and fun and happiness. And though it has happened before, and has always, in the end, come to an end, you can never be quite sure that this time it is not going to last for ever.

'It is going to last for ever,' said Amabel, who was eight. 'What shall I do? Oh whatever shall I do?'

What she had done ought to have formed the subject of her meditations. And she had done what had seemed to her all the time, and in fact still seemed, a self-sacrificing and noble act. She was staying with an aunt—measles or a new baby, or the painters in the house, I forget which, the cause of her banishment. And the aunt, who was really a great-aunt and quite old enough to know better, had been grumbling about her head gardener to a lady who called in blue spectacles and a beady bonnet with violet flowers in it.

'He hardly lets me have a plant for the table,' said the aunt, 'and that border in front of the breakfast-room window—it's just bare earth—and I expressly ordered chrysanthemums to be planted there. He thinks of nothing but his greenhouse.'

The beady-violet-blue-glassed lady snorted, and said she didn't know what we were coming to, and she would have just half a cup, please, with not quite so much milk, thank you very much.

Now what would you have done? Minded your own business most likely, and not got into trouble at all. Not so Amabel. Enthusiastically anxious to do something which should make the great-aunt see what a thoughtful, unselfish, little girl she really was (the aunt's opinion of her being at present quite otherwise), she got up very early in the morning and took the cutting-out scissors from the work-room table drawer and stole, 'like an errand of mercy,' she told herself, to the greenhouse where she busily snipped off every single flower she could find. MacFarlane was at his breakfast. Then with the points of the cutting-out scissors she made nice deep little holes in the flower-bed where the chrysanthemums ought to have been, and struck the flowers in—chrysanthemums, geraniums, primulas, orchids, and carnations. It would be a lovely surprise for Auntie.

Then the aunt came down to breakfast and saw the lovely surprise. Amabel's world turned upside down and inside out suddenly and surprisingly, and there she was, in Coventry, and not even the housemaid would speak to her. Her great-uncle, whom she passed in the hall on her way to her own room, did indeed, as he smoothed his hat, murmur, 'Sent to Coventry, eh? Never mind, it'll soon be over,' and went off to the City banging the front door behind him.

He meant well, but he did not understand.

Amabel understood, or she thought she did, and knew in her miserable heart that she was sent to Coventry for the last time, and that this time she would stay there.

'I don't care,' she said quite untruly. 'I'll never try to be kind to any one again.' And that wasn't true either. She was to spend the whole day alone in the best bedroom, the one with the four-post bed and the red curtains and the large wardrobe with a looking-glass in it that you could see yourself in to the very ends of your strap-shoes.

The first thing Amabel did was to look at herself in the glass. She was still sniffing and sobbing, and her eyes were swimming in tears, another one rolled down her nose as she looked—that was very interesting. Another rolled down, and that was the last, because as soon as you get interested in watching your tears they stop.

Next she looked out of the window, and saw the decorated flower-bed, just as she had left it, very bright and beautiful.

'Well, it does look nice,' she said. 'I don't care what they say.'

Then she looked round the room for something to read; there was nothing. The old-fashioned best bedrooms never did have anything. Only on the large dressing-table, on the left-hand side of the oval swing-glass, was one book covered in red velvet, and on it, very twistily embroidered in yellow silk and mixed up with misleading leaves and squiggles were the letters, A.B.C.

'Perhaps it's a picture alphabet,' said Mabel, and was quite pleased, though of course she was much too old to care for alphabets. Only when one is very unhappy and very dull, anything is better than nothing. She opened the book.

'Why, it's only a time-table!' she said. 'I suppose it's for people when they want to go away, and Auntie puts it here in case they suddenly make up their minds to go, and feel that they can't wait another minute. I feel like that, only it's no good, and I expect other people do too.'

She had learned how to use the dictionary, and this seemed to go the same way. She looked up the names of all the places she knew.—Brighton where she had once spent a month, Rugby where her brother was at school, and Home, which was Amberley—and she saw the times when the trains left for these places, and wished she could go by those trains.

And once more she looked round the best bedroom which was her prison, and thought of the Bastille, and wished she had a toad to tame, like the poor Viscount, or a flower to watch growing, like Picciola, and she was very sorry for herself, and very angry with her aunt, and very grieved at the conduct of her parents—she had expected better things from them—and now they had left her in this dreadful place where no one loved her, and no one understood her.

There seemed to be no place for toads or flowers in the best room, it was carpeted all over even in its least noticeable corners. It had everything a best room ought to have—and everything was of dark shining mahogany. The toilet-table had a set of red and gold glass things—a tray, candlesticks, a ring-stand, many little pots with lids, and two bottles with stoppers. When the stoppers were taken out they smelt very strange, something like very old scent, and something like cold cream also very old, and something like going to the dentist's.

I do not know whether the scent of those bottles had anything to do with what happened. It certainly was a very extraordinary scent. Quite different from any perfume that I smell nowadays, but I remember that when I was a little girl I smelt it quite often. But then there are no best rooms now such as there used to be. The best rooms now are gay with chintz and mirrors, and there are always flowers and books, and little tables to put your teacup on, and sofas, and armchairs. And they smell of varnish and new furniture.

When Amabel had sniffed at both bottles and looked in all the pots, which were quite clean and empty except for a pearl button and two pins in one of them, she took up the A.B.C. again to look for Whitby, where her godmother lived. And it was then that she saw the extraordinary name 'Whereyouwantogoto.' This was odd—but the name of the station from which it started was still more extraordinary, for it was not Euston or Cannon Street or Marylebone.

The name of the station was 'Bigwardrobeinspareroom.' And below this name, really quite unusual for a station, Amabel read in small letters:

'Single fares strictly forbidden. Return tickets No Class Nuppence. Trains leave Bigwardrobeinspareroom all the time.'

And under that in still smaller letters—

'You had better go now.'

What would you have done? Rubbed your eyes and thought you were dreaming? Well, if you had, nothing more would have happened. Nothing ever does when you behave like that. Amabel was wiser. She went straight to the Big Wardrobe and turned its glass handle.

'I expect it's only shelves and people's best hats,' she said. But she only said it. People often say what they don't mean, so that if things turn out as they don't expect, they can say 'I told you so,' but this is most dishonest to one's self, and being dishonest to one's self is almost worse than being dishonest to other people. Amabel would never have done it if she had been herself. But she was out of herself with anger and unhappiness.

Of course it wasn't hats. It was, most amazingly, a crystal cave, very oddly shaped like a railway station. It seemed to be lighted by stars, which is, of course, unusual in a booking office, and over the station clock was a full moon. The clock had no figures, only Now in shining letters all round it, twelve times, and the Nows touched, so the clock was bound to be always right. How different from the clock you go to school by!

A porter in white satin hurried forward to take Amabel's luggage. Her luggage was the A.B.C. which she still held in her hand.

'Lots of time, Miss,' he said, grinning in a most friendly way, 'I am glad you're going. You will enjoy yourself! What a nice little girl you are!'

This was cheering. Amabel smiled.

At the pigeon-hole that tickets come out of, another person, also in white satin, was ready with a mother-of-pearl ticket, round, like a card counter.

'Here you are, Miss,' he said with the kindest smile, 'price nothing, and refreshments free all the way. It's a pleasure,' he added, 'to issue a ticket to a nice little lady like you.' The train was entirely of crystal, too, and the cushions were of white satin. There were little buttons such as you have for electric bells, and on them 'Whatyouwantoeat,' 'Whatyouwantodrink,' 'Whatyouwantoread,' in silver letters.

Amabel pressed all the buttons at once, and instantly felt obliged to blink. The blink over, she saw on the cushion by her side a silver tray with vanilla ice, boiled chicken and white sauce, almonds (blanched), peppermint creams, and mashed potatoes, and a long glass of lemonade—beside the tray was a book. It was Mrs. Ewing's Bad-tempered Family, and it was bound in white vellum.

There is nothing more luxurious than eating while you read—unless it be reading while you eat. Amabel did both: they are not the same thing, as you will see if you think the matter over.

And just as the last thrill of the last spoonful of ice died away, and the last full stop of the Bad-tempered Family met Amabel's eye, the train stopped, and hundreds of railway officials in white velvet shouted, 'Whereyouwantogoto! Get out!'

A velvety porter, who was somehow like a silkworm as well as like a wedding handkerchief sachet, opened the door.

'Now!' he said, 'come on out, Miss Amabel, unless you want to go to Whereyoudon'twantogoto.'

She hurried out, on to an ivory platform.

'Not on the ivory, if you please,' said the porter, 'the white Axminster carpet—it's laid down expressly for you.'

Amabel walked along it and saw ahead of her a crowd, all in white.

'What's all that?' she asked the friendly porter.

'It's the Mayor, dear Miss Amabel,' he said, 'with your address.'

'My address is The Old Cottage, Amberley,' she said, 'at least it used to be'—and found herself face to face with the Mayor. He was very like Uncle George, but he bowed low to her, which was not Uncle George's habit, and said:

'Welcome, dear little Amabel. Please accept this admiring address from the Mayor and burgesses and apprentices and all the rest of it, of Whereyouwantogoto.'

The address was in silver letters, on white silk, and it said:

'Welcome, dear Amabel. We know you meant to please your aunt. It was very clever of you to think of putting the greenhouse flowers in the bare flower-bed. You couldn't be expected to know that you ought to ask leave before you touch other people's things.'

'Oh, but,' said Amabel quite confused. 'I did....'

But the band struck up, and drowned her words. The instruments of the band were all of silver, and the bandsmen's clothes of white leather. The tune they played was 'Cheero!'

Then Amabel found that she was taking part in a procession, hand in hand with the Mayor, and the band playing like mad all the time. The Mayor was dressed entirely in cloth of silver, and as they went along he kept saying, close to her ear.

'You have our sympathy, you have our sympathy,' till she felt quite giddy.

There was a flower show—all the flowers were white. There was a concert—all the tunes were old ones. There was a play called Put yourself in her place. And there was a banquet, with Amabel in the place of honour.

They drank her health in white wine whey, and then through the Crystal Hall of a thousand gleaming pillars, where thousands of guests, all in white, were met to do honour to Amabel, the shout went up—'Speech, speech!'

I cannot explain to you what had been going on in Amabel's mind. Perhaps you know. Whatever it was it began like a very tiny butterfly in a box, that could not keep quiet, but fluttered, and fluttered, and fluttered. And when the Mayor rose and said:

'Dear Amabel, you whom we all love and understand; dear Amabel, you who were so unjustly punished for trying to give pleasure to an unresponsive aunt; poor, ill-used, ill-treated, innocent Amabel; blameless, suffering Amabel, we await your words,' that fluttering, tiresome butterfly-thing inside her seemed suddenly to swell to the size and strength of a fluttering albatross, and Amabel got up from her seat of honour on the throne of ivory and silver and pearl, and said, choking a little, and extremely red about the ears—

'Ladies and gentlemen, I don't want to make a speech, I just want to say, "Thank you," and to say—to say—to say....'

She stopped, and all the white crowd cheered.

'To say,' she went on as the cheers died down, 'that I wasn't blameless, and innocent, and all those nice things. I ought to have thought. And they were Auntie's flowers. But I did want to please her. It's all so mixed. Oh, I wish Auntie was here!'

And instantly Auntie was there, very tall and quite nice-looking, in a white velvet dress and an ermine cloak.

'Speech,' cried the crowd. 'Speech from Auntie!'

Auntie stood on the step of the throne beside Amabel, and said:

'I think, perhaps, I was hasty. And I think Amabel meant to please me. But all the flowers that were meant for the winter ... well—I was annoyed. I'm sorry.'

'Oh, Auntie, so am I—so am I,' cried Amabel, and the two began to hug each other on the ivory step, while the crowd cheered like mad, and the band struck up that well-known air, 'If you only understood!'

'Oh, Auntie,' said Amabel among hugs, 'This is such a lovely place, come and see everything, we may, mayn't we?' she asked the Mayor.

'The place is yours,' he said, 'and now you can see many things that you couldn't see before. We are The People who Understand. And now you are one of Us. And your aunt is another.'

I must not tell you all that they saw because these things are secrets only known to The People who Understand, and perhaps you do not yet belong to that happy nation. And if you do, you will know without my telling you.

And when it grew late, and the stars were drawn down, somehow, to hang among the trees, Amabel fell asleep in her aunt's arms beside a white foaming fountain on a marble terrace, where white peacocks came to drink.

* * * * *

She awoke on the big bed in the spare room, but her aunt's arms were still round her.

'Amabel,' she was saying, 'Amabel!'

'Oh, Auntie,' said Amabel sleepily, 'I am so sorry. It was stupid of me. And I did mean to please you.'

'It was stupid of you,' said the aunt, 'but I am sure you meant to please me. Come down to supper.' And Amabel has a confused recollection of her aunt's saying that she was sorry, adding, 'Poor little Amabel.'

If the aunt really did say it, it was fine of her. And Amabel is quite sure that she did say it.

* * * * *

Amabel and her great-aunt are now the best of friends. But neither of them has ever spoken to the other of the beautiful city called 'Whereyouwantogoto.' Amabel is too shy to be the first to mention it, and no doubt the aunt has her own reasons for not broaching the subject.

But of course they both know that they have been there together, and it is easy to get on with people when you and they alike belong to the Peoplewhounderstand.

* * * * *

If you look in the A.B.C. that your people have you will not find 'Whereyouwantogoto.' It is only in the red velvet bound copy that Amabel found in her aunt's best bedroom.



XI

KENNETH AND THE CARP

Kenneth's cousins had often stayed with him, but he had never till now stayed with them. And you know how different everything is when you are in your own house. You are certain exactly what games the grown-ups dislike and what games they will not notice; also what sort of mischief is looked over and what sort is not. And, being accustomed to your own sort of grown-ups, you can always be pretty sure when you are likely to catch it. Whereas strange houses are, in this matter of catching it, full of the most unpleasing surprises.

You know all this. But Kenneth did not. And still less did he know what were the sort of things which, in his cousins' house, led to disapproval, punishment, scoldings; in short, to catching it. So that that business of cousin Ethel's jewel-case, which is where this story ought to begin, was really not Kenneth's fault at all. Though for a time.... But I am getting on too fast.

Kenneth's cousins were four,—Conrad, Alison, George, and Ethel. The three first were natural sort of cousins somewhere near his own age, but Ethel was hardly like a cousin at all, more like an aunt. Because she was grown-up. She wore long dresses and all her hair on the top of her head, a mass of combs and hairpins; in fact she had just had her twenty-first birthday with iced cakes and a party and lots of presents, most of them jewelry. And that brings me again to that affair of the jewel-case, or would bring me if I were not determined to tell things in their proper order, which is the first duty of a story-teller.

Kenneth's home was in Kent, a wooden house among cherry orchards, and the nearest river five miles away. That was why he looked forward in such a very extra and excited way to his visit to his cousins. Their house was very old, red brick with ivy all over it. It had a secret staircase, only the secret was not kept any longer, and the housemaids carried pails and brooms up and down the staircase. And the house was surrounded by a real deep moat, with clear water in it, and long weeds and water-lilies and fish—the gold and the silver and the everyday kinds.



The first evening of Kenneth's visit passed uneventfully. His bedroom window looked over the moat, and early next morning he tried to catch fish with several pieces of string knotted together and a hairpin kindly lent to him by the parlourmaid. He did not catch any fish, partly because he baited the hairpin with brown windsor soap, and it washed off.

'Besides, fish hate soap,' Conrad told him, 'and that hook of yours would do for a whale perhaps. Only we don't stock our moat with whales. But I'll ask father to lend you his rod, it's a spiffing one, much jollier than ours. And I won't tell the kids because they'd never let it down on you. Fishing with a hairpin!'

'Thank you very much,' said Kenneth, feeling that his cousin was a man and a brother. The kids were only two or three years younger than he was, but that is a great deal when you are the elder; and besides, one of the kids was a girl.

'Alison's a bit of a sneak,' Conrad used to say when anger overcome politeness and brotherly feeling. Afterwards, when the anger was gone and the other things left, he would say, 'You see she went to a beastly school for a bit, at Brighton, for her health. And father says they must have bullied her. All girls are not like it, I believe.'