Your story will have to be longer than anyone
else's to make up for this. Mildred, you explain, as I don't seem able
to express myself properly."

"It can either be a story you have read, or one of something that has
happened to yourself," said Mildred. "We prefer people's own adventures
if we can get them."

"So few people have any adventures in real life!" said Monica.

"Then you can tell something out of a book."

"Suppose I can't remember anything?"

"You must. It needn't be grand; we're not a critical audience."

"I'm very stupid at telling things," said Monica; "might I read you
something instead?"

"If you've got it here."

"As it happens, I have," replied Monica, opening a bound volume of a
magazine which she held in her hand. "I brought this book to lend to
Miss Russell, as I knew it would interest her. It has a story about the
old Manor in the times of the Wars of the Roses, and how Sir Roger
Courtenay came to win it for his own. I dare say you might like to hear
it."

"If it's about the Manor I'm sure we shall," said Irene. "Who wrote the
tale?"

"A gentleman who stayed in the village a year or two ago. He was very
enthusiastic about Haversleigh. I suppose he made it up from the short
account in the guide-book. All the facts are quite true, though he must
have used his imagination for the details. The worst of it is that it's
a fairly long story, and if I read it I'm afraid there won't be any time
left for you to tell yours."

"Oh, we don't mind that!"

"So much the better!"

"Fire away!"

"Do go on!"

Thus encouraged, Monica found her place and, the girls having clustered
round her in a close circle so as to hear the better, she began her
tale:

SIR MERVYN'S WARD

The middle of the fifteenth century was one of the most stormy periods
that the pages of English history have ever recorded. The rival claims
of the houses of York and Lancaster had led to those disastrous Wars of
the Roses that wiped away the flower of chivalry and made the fair land
one bloody battlefield. In the autumn of 1470 Edward IV had been driven
from his throne by the powerful Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker,
and Henry VI had been once more restored to power, though for how long a
period none could venture to guess. They were hard times to live
through, especially for those lesser gentry and yeomen who had not
placed themselves definitely under the protection of any of the greater
barons, and still strov