at all?" asked Dot, sympathetically.

"I had a sister once--one very dear sister," said the lady,
thoughtfully, and looking away across the Parade Ground.

Tess and Dot gazed at each other questioningly; then Tess ventured to
ask:

"Did she die?"

"I don't know," was the sad reply. "We were separated when we were very
young. I can just remember my sister, for we were both little girls in
pinafores. I loved my sister very much, and I am sure she loved me, and,
if she is alive, misses me quite as much as I do her."

"Oh, how sad that is!" murmured Tess. "I hope you will find her, ma'am."

"Not to be thought of in this big world--not to be thought of now,"
repeated the lady, more briskly. She picked up the history that Tess had
dropped. "And which of you little tots studies this? Isn't English
history rather far advanced for you?"

"Tess is _nawful_ smart," Dot hastened to say. "Miss Andrews says so,
though she's a nawful strict teacher, too. Isn't she, Tess?"

Her sister nodded soberly. Her mind reverted at once to the sovereigns
of England and Miss Pepperill. "I--I'm afraid I'm not very quick to
learn, after all. Miss Pepperill will think me an awful dunce when I
can't learn the sovereigns."

"The sovereigns?" repeated the woman in gray, with interest. "What
sovereigns?"

So Tess (of course, with Dot's valuable help) explained her difficulty,
and all about the new teacher Tess expected to have.

"And she'll think I'm awfully dull," repeated Tess, sadly. "I just
_can't_ make my mind remember the succession of those kings and queens.
It's the hardest thing I ever tried to learn. Do you s'pose all English
children have to learn it?"

"I know they have an easy way of committing to memory the succession of
their sovereigns, from William the Conqueror, down to the present time,"
said the lady, thoughtfully. "Or, they used to have."

"Oh, dear me!" wailed Tess. "I wish I knew how to remember the old
things. But I don't."

"Suppose I teach you the rhyme I learned when I was a very little girl
at school?"

"Oh, would you?" cried Tess, her pretty face lighting up as she gazed
admiringly again at the woman in the gray cloak.

"Yes. And we will add a couplet or two at the end to bring the list down
to date--for there have been two more sovereigns since the good Queen
Victoria passed away. Now attend! Here is the rhyme. I will recite it
for you, and then I will write it down and you may learn it at your
leisure."