have been
rather a formidable business to sit down and entertain Mr. Forrester
all the evening with conversation, rational or otherwise; and although
at the moment she was in the dignified position of lady of the castle,
she could not the less enjoy a game amazingly.

The theatre of operations was wisely restricted, because if they had
gone all over the castle they might have hidden themselves so that the
game would have been endless; therefore they kept to the under part
of the inhabited region. At length, tiring of this, they changed their
game to blindman's buff, and went to the kitchen to play it, there
being more room and fewer obstacles there; besides that, it was empty
of tenants at the time, the servants having gone to see some of the
neighbors.

It was a curious old kitchen, with a very low roof, and having a
fireplace in a big semicircular stone recess. Many a boar's head had
revolved there, and many a venison pasty had sent forth its fragrance
to greet the tired hunters returning from the chase. The fire glowed
in its deep recess like the eye of an old-world monster in a cavern,
till one of the boys seized the poker and made it flame up, throwing
its blaze out as far as it could for its walls, and making the kitchen
and the group standing in it like a picture by Rembrandt.

"Who's to be blind man first?" cried the girls.

"Edwin: that will be the best fun," the boys said.

"Very well, I sha'n't be long blind," said Edwin: "I shall soon catch
some of you. Who'll tie the handkerchief?"

"Bessie: she always ties it. Go and kneel to her, and she'll tie it so
that you won't see."

What must Mr. Forrester have felt while being blinded by the Rose?
Only, he had long been accustomed to be if not blinded, at least
dazed, by her. The boys led him into the middle of the floor and
dispersed themselves into corners. While he stood in the attitude of
listening intently, he was conscious of a very gentle movement near
him, and instantly closed his arms round it, as he thought, and
encountered empty air, while with a shout of laughter the children
cried, "Bessie was too quick for you. There, quick! quick! Edwin!" He
sprang to the corner the voices came from, and the boys rushed along
the wall to avoid his arms spread out to catch them, when suddenly the
doorbell rang.

At the sound Edwin put up his hand to take off the handkerchief, but
the boys cried, "Don't take it off: if it's any one, Bessie can speak
to them