e came and bow'ed
to me last night, after you others had all been sent to bed early--and
somehow I felt I HAD to do it!"

"Oh, but that doesn't count," said Edward hastily; "because we weren't
all there. We'll take that christening off, and call it Uncle William.
And you can save up the curate for the next litter!"

And the motion being agreed to without a division, the House went into
Committee of Supply.

ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS

"Let's pretend," suggested Harold, "that we're Cavaliers and Roundheads;
and YOU be a Roundhead!"

"O bother," I replied drowsily, "we pretended that yesterday; and it's
not my turn to be a Roundhead, anyhow." The fact is, I was lazy, and
the call to arms fell on indifferent ears. We three younger ones were
stretched at length in the orchard. The sun was hot, the season merry
June, and never (I thought) had there been such wealth and riot of
buttercups throughout the lush grass. Green-and-gold was the dominant
key that day. Instead of active "pretence" with its shouts and
perspiration, how much better--I held--to lie at ease and pretend to
one's self, in green and golden fancies, slipping the husk and passing,
a careless lounger, through a sleepy imaginary world all gold and green!
But the persistent Harold was not to be fobbed of.

"Well, then," he began afresh, "let's pretend we're Knights of the Round
Table; and (with a rush) _I'll_ be Lancelot!"

"I won't play unless I'm Lancelot," I said. I didn't mean it really, but
the game of Knights always began with this particular contest.

"O PLEASE," implored Harold. "You know when Edward's here I never get a
chance of being Lancelot. I haven't been Lancelot for weeks!"

Then I yielded gracefully. "All right," I said. "I'll be Tristram."

"O, but you can't," cried Harold again.

"Charlotte has always been Tristram. She won't play unless she's allowed
to be Tristram! Be somebody else this time."

Charlotte said nothing, but breathed hard, looking straight before her.
The peerless hunter and harper was her special hero of romance, and
rather than see the part in less appreciative hands, she would even have
returned sadly to the stuffy schoolroom.

"I don't care," I said: "I'll be anything. I'll be Sir Kay. Come on!"

Then once more in this country's story the mail-clad knights paced
through the greenwood shaw, questing adventure, redressing wrong; and
bandits, five to one, broke and fled discomfited to their caves. Once
again