l more delightful to be back once more at
Brenlands, and there, round the supper-table, to give Queen Mab an
account of their adventures.

"I should like to know who that man was whom I saw hiding among the
bushes," said Barbara.

"I should like to know what Raymond was up to when we missed him coming
home," said Valentine.

"Yes," added Jack thoughtfully; "he was hiding away somewhere, for I
could have sworn I heard his voice when I walked back to the corner."

CHAPTER VI.

A KEEPSAKE.

"He is my own child, and he is not so very ugly after all, if you look
at him properly."--_The Ugly Duckling_.

The holidays passed too quickly, as they always did at Brenlands. Jack
was no longer the ugly duckling. Whatever misunderstanding or lack of
sympathy might have existed hitherto between himself and Valentine had
melted away in the sunny atmosphere of Queen Mab's court; and since the
incident of the magpie's nest, the two boys had become fast friends.

Soldiering was their great mutual hobby. They constructed miniature
earthworks in the garden, mounted brass cannon thereon, fired them off
with real powder, and never could discover where the shots went to.
They read and re-read "A Voice from Waterloo," the only military book
they could discover in their aunt's bookcase; and on wet days the bare
floor of the empty room upstairs was spread with the pomp and
circumstance of war. The soldiers had a wonderful way of concealing
their sufferings; they never groaned or murmured, and, shot down one
day, were perfectly ready to take the field again on the next, and so
when the solid lead captain or die mounted officer who took on and off
his horse was "put out of mess" by a well-directed pea, the knowledge
that they would reappear ready to fight again another day considerably
lessened one's grief at the sight of their fall. Perhaps, after all,
lead is a more natural "food for powder" than flesh and blood, and so
the only time tears were shed over one of these battles was one morning
when Barbara surreptitiously crammed two dozen peas into her mouth,
fired them with one prolonged discharge into the midst of Valentine's
cavalry, and then fled the room, whereupon Jack sat down and laughed
till he cried.

It would be difficult to say what it was that made Queen Mab's nephews
and nieces like to wander out into the kitchen and stand by her side
when she was making pastry or shelling peas; but they seemed to find it
a ve