"Why naughty tween send dute away?" echoed Mary, a golden-haired fairy, the image, as Mevrouw Grootz was wont to declare, of Adèle at the same age.
"Because the Queen does not like him as she used to do. She likes somebody else better, and there are unkind people who whisper in her ear stories about him that are very likely not true. He is a great man, Eustace, and there are always little men to say unkind things about the great."
"Are you a great man, Faver?"
"No, my son; I am a plain English squire, that would rather live here with you all than in any king's palace."
"But your father might have been a great man," said Mistress Berkeley. "A great prince——"
"Nay, nay, my dear," interrupted the squire, "leave that story till the children are older. It is bed-time now, my chicks. Hark how the wind roars! Think of the little birds out in the cold; they have no warm cosy cots like yours. In the morning, remember, we are to make a figure of the great duke in the snow.—But what is that?"
The deep-toned house-bell had clanged in the hall below.
"'Tis late for a visitor, and in this snowstorm too!"
He threw open the door, and stood waiting. In a few moments a man appeared.
"An't please 'ee, sir, a coach be snowed up a hunnerd yards or so beyond church, an' the travellers be come afoot to axe if 'ee'll give 'em shelter."