Dick listened with most flattering interest, though it was getting dusk and colder than ever. The lights were lighted in the house and the trap-door had become a yellow square. A shadow in this yellow square warned Dick, and he pinched Edred’s arm.
“Come,” he said, “and let us apply ourselves to our books. Virtuous youths always act in their preceptors’ absence as they would if their preceptors were present. I feel as though mine were present. Therefore, I take it, I am a virtuous youth.”
On which the shadow disappeared very suddenly, and the two boys, laughing in a choking inside sort of way, went down to learn their lessons by the light of two guttering tallow candles in solid silver candlesticks.
The next day Edred got the old nurse to take him to the Court, and because the Queen was very fond of Lady Arden he actually managed to see her Majesty and, what is more, to get permission to visit his father and sister in the Tower. The permission was written by the Queen’s own hand and bade the Lieutenant of the Tower to admit Master Edred Arden and Master Richard Arden and an attendant. Then the nurse became very busy with sewing, and two days went by, and Mr. Parados rapped the boys’ fingers and scolded them and scowled at them and wondered why they bore it all so patiently. Then came The Day, and it was bitterly cold, and as the afternoon got older snow began to fall.
“So much the better,” said the old nurse, “so much the better.”
It was at dusk that the guard was changed at the Tower Gate, and a quarter of an hour before dusk Lord Arden’s carriage stopped at the Tower Gate and an old nurse in ruff and cap and red cloak got out of it and lifted out two little gentlemen, one in black with a cloak trimmed with squirrel fur, which was Edred, and another, which was Richard, in grey velvet and marten’s fur. And the lieutenant was called, and he read the Queen’s order and nodded kindly to Edred, and they all went in. And as they went across the yard to the White Tower, where Lord Arden’s lodging was, the snow fell thick on their cloaks and furs and froze to the stuff, for it was bitter cold.
And again, “So much the better,” the nurse said, “so much the better.”
Elfrida was with Lord Arden, sitting on his knee, when the visitors came in. She jumped up and greeted Edred with a glad cry and a very close hug.
“Go with Nurse,” he whispered through the hug. “Do exactly what she tells you.”
“But I’ve made a piece of poetry,” Elfrida whispered, “and now you’re here.”