EDWY AND THE ECHO
It was in the time of good Queen Anne, when none of the trees in the great forest of Norwood, near London, had begun to be cut down, that a very rich gentleman and lady lived in that neighborhood. Their name was Lawley, and they had a fine old house and large garden with a wall all round it. The woods were so close to this garden that some of the high trees spread their branches over the top of the wall.
Now this lady and gentleman were very proud and very grand. They despised all people poorer than themselves, and there were none whom they despised more than the gypsies, who lived in the forest round about them.
There was no place in all England then so full of gypsies as the forest of Norwood.
Mr. and Mrs. Lawley had been married many years without having children. At length they had a son, whom they called Edwy. They could not make enough of their only child or dress him too finely.
When he was just old enough to run about without help, he used to wear his trousers inlaid with the finest lace, with golden studs and laced robings. He had a plume of feathers in his cap, which was of velvet, with a button of gold to fasten it up in front under the feathers. He looked so fine that whoever saw him with the servants who attended him used to say, “Whose child is that?”
He was a pretty boy, too, and when his first sorrow came he was still too young to have learned any proud ways.
No one is so rich as to be above the reach of trouble, and when at last it came to Mr. and Mrs. Lawley it was all the more terrible.
One day the proud parents had been away some hours visiting a friend a few miles distant. On their return Edwy was nowhere to be found. His waiting-maid was gone, and had taken away his finest clothes. At least, these also were missing.