"Very well," assented Barbara, "only we did want you!"
"We'll bring home some wild flowers," said Evan. "Nurse says she can find a jar to put in the fireplace; this is so common and ugly, isn't it Lucia?"
"Rather," answered Lucia, turning her head to look; "only mind you keep within sight of the cottage."
"Oh, yes," exclaimed Ivor, "we will. This is the loveliest place I ever saw! Ten times as nice as the beach at Westgate."
So they found a basket, and with their lunch in the depths of it, to be replaced by flowers, set off together, Barbara being trusted with the care of Queenie (as they were not going out of sight), and May pleading to stay with nurse to help put away the contents of the ten boxes which at present made a warehouse of the narrow little hall.
[CHAPTER III.]
LUCIA'S QUEEN.
LOYALTY had been born and bred in the family of which Lucia was the eldest child.
Ever since she could remember, "The Queen" was her ideal, and Windsor Castle the place in all the world that she loved to be near.
This cottage almost beneath the shadow of Windsor Castle had belonged to her mother's family all her life, and every year she and her mother, when they were alone together in the old days, had migrated there for a month or two, so that every turret and tree was dear to them, and the Queen and Royal Family seemed to belong to them in a special way.