o Mistress Randall and the two girls,
subject however to the chance of turning out for any very distinguished
guests. The big bed held all three, and the chamber was likewise their
sitting-room, though they took their meals down stairs, and joined the
party in the common room in the evening whenever they were not out of
doors, unless there were guests whom Perronel did not think desirable
company for her charges. Stephen and Giles were quartered in a small
room known as the Feathers, smelling so sweet of lavender and woodruff
that Stephen declared it carried him back to the Forest. Mrs
Streatfield would have taken Jasper to tend among her children, but the
boy could not bear to be without Stephen, and his brother advised her to
let it be so, and not try to make a babe of him again.

The guest-chamber below stairs opened at one end into the innyard, a
quadrangle surrounded with stables, outhouses, and offices, with a
gallery running round to give access to the chambers above, where, when
the Court was at Windsor, two or three great men's trains of retainers
might be crowded together.

One door, however, in the side of the guest-chamber had steps down to an
orchard, full of apple and pear trees in their glory of pink bud and
white blossom, borders of roses, gillyflowers, and lilies of the valley
running along under the grey walls. There was a broad space of grass
near the houses, whence could be seen the Round Tower of the Castle
looking down in protection, while the background of the view was filled
up with a mass of the foliage of Windsor forest, in the spring tints.

Stephen never thought of its being beautiful, but he revelled in the
refreshment of anything so like home, and he had nothing to wish for but
his brother, and after all he was too contented and happy even to miss
him much.

Master Streatfield was an elderly man, fat and easy-going, to whom
talking seemed rather a trouble than otherwise, though he was very good-
natured. His wife was a merry, lively, active woman, who had been
handed over to him by her father like a piece of Flanders cambric, but
who never seemed to regret her position, managed men and maids, farm and
guests, kept perfect order without seeming to do so, and made great
friends with Perronel, never guessing that she had been one of the
strolling company, who, nine or ten years before, had been refused
admission to the Antelope, then crowded with my Lord of Oxford's
followers.

At f