"No, I am not," persists the Boodie, in an unmoved tone.
"Stephen," again turning his face to hers, "are you 'meke'?"
At this word all the truth becomes at once known to Portia and Dulce. The Boodie had been in the room when they were discussing Stephen with her mother. She had heard everything. She is a little pitcher—she has long ears. Can nothing be done to stop her further speech?
"He is a very nice boy, but I'm not prepared to go as far as calling him meek," says Dicky Browne, who begins to scent mischief in the air. "Who applied that word to him?"
"I think it is time all you children ran away to nurse," says Julia, in answer to an agonized glance from both girls.
"It was Portia," says the Boodie to Dicky Browne, in her sweet innocent treble. "Dulce said first he was a 'knight,' and then Portia said he was a 'meek maid.' She said something, too, about 'port,' but I don't think she meant Uncle Christopher's port; I think she meant Stephen's."
Deadly silence follows this bombshell. As Mr. Gower, only the day before, had been reading the "Canterbury Tales" for them in his very best old English style, it is impossible to believe the two quotations from them, used in the morning, are not now alive in his memory.
Gower colors, and looks questioningly at Dulce. His expression is not altogether one of chagrin. The child had said she (Dulce) had called him a knight—"a veray parfit gentil knight" it must have been. There is comfort, and even gladness in this thought; so much comfort, that he even feels inclined to forgive Portia for comparing him to a "mayde." Still, some awkwardness is naturally felt by all—except the Boodie, who yawns indifferently, and finally follows the other children up to the nursery—and every one is vainly trying to think of some commonplace remark, that, when uttered, shall have the effect of restoring conversation once more into a safe channel, when an interruption occurs that puts chagrin and awkwardness out of their minds for the rest of the evening.
First upon the air the reports of two guns being fired off quickly, one after the other; then the quick flinty sound of a horse's galloping hoofs.
Nearer they came, and still nearer, with that mad haste belonging to them, that suggests unmanageable fury in the brute beast; and as all on the balcony rise simultaneously and press forward to see what may be coming, Bess and the dog-cart turn the corner near the chestnut tree, and dash onwards towards the lower lawn.