g. He stuck his thumb in his
mouth, looked at her an instant, and then, climbing down from the
banister, started to the top of the stairs as fast as his short legs could
carry him, for another downward spin.

Lloyd waited for her mother to come up to the step on which she stood, and
then said, with a look of concern, "Do you suppose they are all heah,
'Fido' an' all of them? And that Howl will follow me around as he did on
shipboard, beggin' for stories? It will spoil all my fun with the girls if
he does."

"'Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you,'" said her father,
playfully pinching her cheek. "You'll find it easier to escape persecution
on land than on shipboard. Henny didn't seem at all anxious to renew his
acquaintance with you. He evidently finds sliding down bannisters more to
his taste. Maybe Howell has found something equally interesting."

"I certainly hope so," said Lloyd, running on to their rooms at the end of
the hall. The casement window in her room looked out over a broad
bouleyard, down the middle of which went a double row of trees, shading a
strip of grass, where benches were set at intervals.

Lloyd leaned out to look and listen. A company of soldiers was marching up
the street in the gay red and blue of their French uniforms, to the music
of a band. A group of girls from a convent school passed by. Then some
nuns. She stood there a long time, finding the panorama that passed her
window so interesting that she forgot how time was passing, until her
mother called to her that they were going down to lunch.

"I like it heah, evah so much," she announced, as she followed her father
and mother into the dining-room. "Did you ask in the office, Papa Jack,
when the girls would be back?"

"Yes, they have gone to Amboise. They will be home before dark. I am
sorry you missed taking that trip with them, Lloyd. It is one of the most
interesting chateaux around here in my opinion. Mary, Queen of Scots, went
there a bride. There she was forced to watch the Hugenots being thrown
over into the river. Leonardo da Vinci is buried there, and Charles VIII.
was killed there by bumping his head against a low doorway."

"Oh, deah!" sighed the Little Colonel, "my head is all in a tangle.
There's so many spots to remembah. Every time you turn around you bump
into something you ought to remembah because some great man was bawn
there, or died there, or did something wondahful there. It would be lots
easiah for