an
equal. 'I've enjoyed our conversation very much,' he said. 'That was an
interesting subject you started, and we haven't half exhausted it. We
shall meet again, I hope?'

'Of course we shall,' I replied, surprised that there should be any
doubt about it.

'In Rome perhaps?' said he.

'Yes, in Rome,' I answered; 'or Piccy-the-other-place, or somewhere.'

'Or else,' said he, 'in that other city--when we've found the way there.
And I'll look out for you, and you'll sing out as soon as you see me.
And we'll go down the street arm-in-arm, and into all the shops, and
then I'll choose my house, and you'll choose your house, and we'll live
there like princes and good fellows.'

'O, but you'll stay in my house, won't you?' I cried; 'I wouldn't ask
everybody; but I'll ask _you_.'

He affected to consider a moment; then 'Right!' he said: 'I believe you
mean it, and I _will_ come and stay with you. I won't go to anybody
else, if they ask me ever so much. And I'll stay quite a long time, too,
and I won't be any trouble.'

Upon this compact we parted, and I went down-heartedly from the man who
understood me, back to the house where I never could do anything right.
How was it that everything seemed natural and sensible to him, which
these uncles, vicars, and other grown-up men took for the merest
tomfoolery? Well, he would explain this, and many another thing, when we
met again. The Knights' Road! How it always brought consolation! Was he
possibly one of those vanished knights I had been looking for so long?
Perhaps he would be in armour next time--why not? He would look well in
armour, I thought. And I would take care to get there first, and see the
sunlight flash and play on his helmet and shield, as he rode up the High
Street of the Golden City.

Meantime, there only remained the finding it. An easy matter.

[Illustration]

THE SECRET DRAWER

IT must surely have served as a boudoir for the ladies of old time, this
little used, rarely entered chamber where the neglected old bureau
stood. There was something very feminine in the faint hues of its faded
brocades, in the rose and blue of such bits of china as yet remained,
and in the delicate old-world fragrance of pot-pourri from the great
bowl,--blue and white, with funny holes in its cover,--that stood on the
bureau's flat top. Modern aunts disdained this out-of-the-way,
backwater, upstairs room, preferring to do their accounts and grapple
with their corresp