It had been an idle bachelor's fancy to build after this unique fashion some ten years before; but when Harold's mother had come seeking a home in Windsor, he was already tired of it, and she found the house was “To be let,” provided desirable tenants could be found; and “desirable” the little widow proved in the eyes of the discriminating agent. “None more so,” he thought complacently when he called for the first quarter's rent, and saw what a gem of a place she had made it. All the contents of the house in London, which after her husband's death had seemed too sad a place to live in, had been brought into the ivy-covered little castle, and under her transforming touch it had soon become as cheery and cosey as possible. But it was not enough for Harold that he was able to invite his friends into such an attractive home. A room in the top story, with a fine north light, was fitted up as a studio for Uncle Fritz, who, though a business man by circumstance, was an artist through and through. For Aunt Lou an up-stairs sitting-room was converted into a little study; for although Aunt Lou herself was rather loath to confess it, it was nevertheless somewhat generally known that she was very fond of writing stories for children. For Marie-Celeste there seemed nothing in particular that could be done, save to make her own little room as inviting as could be. To accomplish this, Harold conferred with a friend of Ted's, Canon Allyn's daughter. Miss Allyn, who had been a great favorite of Harold's mother, was only too glad to have him turn to her, and entered into all the preparations with an enthusiasm that was very delightful. She suggested, among other things, a valance and curtains for the little brass bedstead, already purchased, and then went herself and selected a soft, white material and superintended their making. At her suggestion, too, the couch and chairs were upholstered with a pretty flower-patterned cretonne, and some lovely white-framed etchings were hung upon the tinted walls. Then, by grace of his own idea of fitness, Harold had added to the other furnishings a Dresden china toilet-set, and in this he was perhaps far wiser than he knew, for is there anything so well calculated to captivate at sight the heart of a dainty little maiden as the mysterious round-topped boxes that compose the dainty outfit of the ideal dressing-table? Then, to crown it all, a pair of ponies and a basket-phaeton had been purchased for the exclusive use of the guests that were to be. Of course, all this meant money; but with the exception of the previous summer, when Theodore's guests had cost him such a pretty penny, Harold had conscientiously lived a good way inside his income, so that there was a reserve fund to draw on, on demand. As I said, then, who would not have taken kindly to the life at Windsor under such conditions, and have lost no time in stowing themselves happily away in the special niche prepared for them? So Mr. Harris painted as for dear life in all weathers, indoors or out, as the fancy struck him, and Mrs. Harris turned her leisure to account for a bit of writing now and then, and in between times they drove hither and thither in the basket-phaeton, and, one by one, took in all the sights of old and delightful Windsor. And Marie-Celeste did likewise, as far as the driving and sight-seeing were concerned; but having no greater responsibility than the arrangement of the Dresden boxes on the little dressing-table, wandered about at her own sweet will, in the hours while Harold was at school and when every one else was busy. And the place to which she wandered most often was to St. George's Chapel, which at the time of her talk with Donald she had not yet had the good fortune to visit. But with Marie-Celeste, as with some of the rest of us, to know St. George's was to love it, and she had soon gained a standing permission to go there whenever she liked; and that was very often—so often, in fact, that any one who saw her one lovely May morning tripping down the walk from the Little Castle, as though bent upon some special errand, could easily have guessed her destination. It was a matter of five minutes to reach the corner of High Street, and of three minutes more to climb Castle Hill; then a smile to the guard who happened to be on duty at the gate, and she was within the castle walls. And once there she stopped to take it all in, for it had never seemed so beautiful before; and then in a moment she knew what new touch had been added to the scene. The sun had shone as brilliantly, and the gray round tower, with its grass-grown terraces, had stood out as clearly against the blue of the English sky, but never before—for Marie-Celeste, that is—had those terraces been abloom with great masses of lilacs. Two days had come and gone since her last visit, and the showers and sunshine intervening had flashed the myriad tiny buds of every cluster into full and transcendent bloom. No wonder the child held her breath, spellbound from sheer delight, and no wonder, too, that the spell lost its power to hold her the moment she spied a darling, new little friend of hers standing in the chapel doorway. “And—and now good-morning,” rang out a cheery little voice as she had hastened up the path.
“Good-morning, Albert,” answered Marie-Celeste, smiling at the expected, “and now,” with which, by way of getting the best of a tendency to stutter, Albert was accustomed to preface many of his remarks; “I thought I should find you here,” she added; “and have you seen the lilacs, Albert?”
“Yes; and our bushes are out too,” with an emphatic little nod of the head, as much as to say, that the Queen's lilacs were not specially privileged in that direction.
“Is your sister going to play this morning?” asked Marie-Celeste, with an eagerness on her face that gave place to intense satisfaction as Albert answered, “Yes; she's comin' in a little while;” since to have Miss Allyn at the organ during these visits of hers to the chapel was just the most delightful thing that could possibly happen for Marie-Celeste. “And now let's have a little chat,” said Albert, seating himself on the step, and making room for Marie-Celeste beside him.
“And what shall we talk about?”
“The weather;” for with Albert this topic was always of paramount importance. “And first, I'll see what kind of a day we are going to have;” and suiting the action to the word, he stepped off a little distance to take an observation. He was always the embodiment of dainty freshness, this little four-year-old Albert, and thanks to his mother's preference, boyish percale dresses still kept the Lilliputian trousers of the period at bay. He was a cunning little object as he strode a few feet down the path, his hat on the back of his golden curls, a soft, red silk sash knotted soldier-like at his side, and his hands folded behind him, in evident and precise imitation of some older observer of the elements. His observations, however, were so exceedingly cursory and so impartially comprehensive, including the path at his feet every whit as carefully as the sky above him, that Marie-Celeste had difficulty in preserving proper decorum.
“We are going to have a fine day,” Albert asserted, resuming his seat on the steps, and with the authority of one who knows; and the matter of the weather being thus satisfactorily disposed of, Marie-Celeste made so bold as to introduce another subject; and as it chanced to meet with Albert's approval, they chatted merrily together for ever so long. Meantime, a party of tourists, with Marshall's familiar pink guide-hook open in the hands of one of them, had been surveying the chapel at a distance, and now, after a word or two with the children on the doorstep, made their way within.