'Not to-day,' said the Appanage of Royalty, with a queer smile.
'To-morrow, then?' demanded Raymond.
'Some day—perhaps!' the other replied, still with that queer smile. And then he disappeared; but whether he dissolved into steam, or exploded like a soap-bubble, or went out by the door in the regular way, the little boy could never be quite sure. It was enough for him that an Appanage of Royalty had said that some day, perhaps, he would give him his gold cap. And Raymond never forgot this adventure; and as a kind of pledge of its reality he ever afterwards wore the spade guinea round his neck by a silken string. He believed that sooner or later it would be the means of bringing him fame and greatness.
CHAPTER II.
THE GOLDEN PLEDGE.
One fine May morning, while Rosamund was churning in the dairy-room of the Brindled Cow, she heard some one walk into the bar. The step was not that of any one of her familiar suitors. It was neither short plump Armand, nor tall bulky Osmund, nor red-haired broad-cheeked Phillimund, nor short-legged thick-necked Sigismund, who drank six quarts of milk last Saturday; nor short-breathed apoplectic Dorimund, who sang sentimental songs with a voice like a year-old heifer's. No, none of these had a step like this step—sauntering, light, and meditative. Nevertheless, it was a step which Rosamund loved to hear.
She stopped churning, and moved softly to where a brightly-polished tin pan was set up on the shelf. It was Rosamund's looking-glass. Before this she smoothed her rumpled hair, straightened the pink bow at her throat, and snatched off her dirty apron. She was provoked to see how red the churning had made her cheeks, and she wished she were paler; but the wish only seemed to make her rosier than before. She told herself that she was a coarse-looking ugly girl; and yet when, only that morning, Dorimund had told her that she was as beautiful as a fairy, she had taken it quite as a matter of course. It was tiresome—the way people could grow ugly all in a moment—and in the wrong moment too!
All this happened during the two or three minutes after the light-stepping visitor had come into the bar; and now this person tapped twice or thrice on the counter. Rosamund, on hearing the tap, began to hum a little song, in an unconcerned sort of way, and walked up and down the dairy a few times, as if she were putting things in order; and when, at last, she came out to the bar, it was with the air of a very busy young woman, who does not like to be disturbed at her churning.