Elfrida had to wait on her mother and to sew at the sampler, which had been thoughtfully brought by the old nurse with her lady’s clothes, and the clothes Elfrida wore. But there were no games, and the only out-of-doors Elfrida could get was on a very narrow terrace where dead flower-stalks stuck up out of a still narrower border, beside a flagged pathway where there was just room for one to walk, and not for two. From this terrace you could see the fat, queer-looking ships in the river, and the spire of St. Paul’s.
Edred was more fortunate. He was allowed to play in the garden of the Lieutenant of the Tower. But he did not feel much like playing. He wanted to find Elfrida and get back to Arden. Every one was very kind to him, but he had to be very much quieter than he was used to being, and to say Sir and Madam, and not to speak till he was spoken to. You have no idea how tiresome it is not to speak till you are spoken to, with the world full, as it is, of a thousand interesting things that you want to ask questions about.
One day—for they were there quite a number of days—Edred met some one who seemed to like answering questions, and this made more difference than perhaps you would think.
Edred was walking one bright winter morning in the private garden of the Lieutenant of the Tower, and he saw coming towards him a very handsome old gentleman dressed in very handsome clothes, and, what is more, the clothes blazed with jewels. Now, most of the gentlemen who were prisoners in the Tower at that time thought that their very oldest clothes were good enough to be in prison in, so this splendour that was coming across the garden was very unusual as well as very dazzling, and before Edred could remember the rules about not speaking till you’re spoken to, he found that he had suddenly bowed and said—
“Your servant, sir;” adding, “you do look ripping!”
“I do not take your meaning,” said the gentleman, but he smiled kindly.
“I mean, how splendid you look!”
The old gentleman looked pleased.
“I am happy to command your admiration,” he said.
“I mean your clothes;” said Edred, and then feeling with a shock that this was not the way to behave, he added, “Your face is splendid too—only I’ve been taught manners, and I know you mustn’t tell people they’re handsome in their faces. ‘Praise to the face is open disgrace,’—Mrs. Honeysett says so.”