re been such wealth and riot of
buttercups throughout the lush grass. Green-and-gold was the dominant
key that day. Instead of active 'pretence' with its shouts and its
perspiration, how much better--I held--to lie at ease and pretend to
one's self, in green and golden fancies, slipping the husk and passing,
a careless lounger, through a sleepy imaginary world all gold and
green! But the persistent Harold was not to be fobbed off.

'Well then,' he began afresh, 'let's pretend we're Knights of the Round
Table; and (with a rush) _I'll_ be Lancelot!'

'I won't play unless I'm Lancelot,' I said. I didn't mean it really, but
the game of Knights always began with this particular contest.

'O _please_,' implored Harold. 'You know when Edward's here I never get
a chance of being Lancelot. I haven't been Lancelot for weeks!'

Then I yielded gracefully. 'All right,' I said. 'I'll be Tristram.'

'O, but you can't,' cried Harold again. 'Charlotte has always been
Tristram. She won't play unless she's allowed to be Tristram! Be
somebody else this time.'

Charlotte said nothing, but breathed hard, looking straight before her.
The peerless hunter and harper was her special hero of romance, and
rather than see the part in less appreciative hands, she would have gone
back in tears to the stuffy schoolroom.

'I don't care,' I said: 'I'll be anything. I'll be Sir Kay. Come on!'

Then once more in this country's story the mail-clad knights paced
through the greenwood shaw, questing adventure, redressing wrong; and
bandits, five to one, broke and fled discomfited to their caves. Once
more were damsels rescued, dragons disembowelled, and giants, in every
corner of the orchard, deprived of their already superfluous number of
heads; while Palomides the Saracen waited for us by the well, and Sir
Breuse Saunce Pite vanished in craven flight before the skilled spear
that was his terror and his bane. Once more the lists were dight in
Camelot, and all was gay with shimmer of silk and gold; the earth shook
with thunder of hooves, ash-staves flew in splinters, and the firmament
rang to the clash of sword on helm. The varying fortune of the day swung
doubtful--now on this side, now on that; till at last Lancelot, grim and
great, thrusting through the press, unhorsed Sir Tristram (an easy
task), and bestrode her, threatening doom; while the Cornish knight,
forgetting hard-won fame of old, cried piteously, 'You're hurting me, I
tell you! and you'