August eighth. Aged Fifteen.

It is only a month since the Donnans opened their new shop up on the open square facing the market hill, and not far from the railway station. It was one of a row of villas, mostly tenanted by men who had returned from the "pack"—that is, who had made a neat little fortune in the business which calls itself Credit Drapery, but which, perhaps undeservedly, is called much harder names by its clients, especially when its back is turned.

These, being the aristocracy of a Shilling-a-Week and Cent.-per-Cent., objected exceedingly to a mere confectioner's shop thrusting its nose into the midst of their blue-stone walls, picked out by window-sills and lintels of raw-beef Locharbriggs freestone. But they could not help it, and after the chief of them all, Oliphant McGill, had smelt the now floury fist of the Reformed Idler, and been informed what would happen if he "heard a wurrrd out of the heads av wan o' them"—there fell a great peace on Whinstone Villas.

Some even became customers, and the new business increased with wonderous rapidity. Butcher Donnan became Sweet-Cake Donnan, but that made no difference to his force of arm, or to the respect in which he was universally held.

As he had prophesied, it was not long till he had a pale-blue-and-gold covered van on the road, dandily hooded in case of rain, and with two spy-holes so that the driver could see for himself what was coming up behind him.

From the Cave of Mystery high up on Hugh John's hill we could see it crawling along the roads (really it was going quite fast), like a lumpy cerulean beetle, the like of which for brilliance is not to be found in Curtis.

And the driver was Butcher Donnan himself. He knew all the farmers, and as he had made one fortune already, as fortunes went in Edam, the people were the readier to deal with him. Sometimes even the poorest would save up a penny for one of Mrs. Donnan's sponge-cakes. It was soon called the "Watering Cart," because in hot weather you could tell when it had gone along the road by the drip from the ice underneath, by means of which the jellies and confections were kept cool, while in winter the blue-and-gold beetle steamed like a volcano with hot mince-pies. Oh, Butcher Donnan believed in delivering his goods to the customer in the finest possible condition!

But this same Butcher Donnan being now driver and salesman-out-of-doors, and Mrs. Donnan equally busy in the kitchen, it was obvious that some one must be found for the shop. How I should have loved the job! But a certain Eben Dickson, apprentice with Nipper at the down town business, was called in, and so thoroughly proved his liking for the place in the course of a single afternoon that a more permanent and less appreciative successor was sought for.

Eben was laid up for several days, owing to an accident which happened to him when Butcher Donnan returned from his journeyings afield. It is understood that Nipper also remonstrated with him, without, however, the use of many words.

The van had therefore to be put out of commission for several days till another arrangement was possible. And again it was Hugh John who, with his eyelids half closed and looking at the bright landscape through the long three-draw telescope, cut the knot with a carelessly breathed suggestion.

"Why not ask Elizabeth Fortinbras?"

"They would never dare!" said I. "Old Fortinbras thinks himself no end of a swell!"

"Yes," said Hugh John, with tranquil irony, "he has failed in at least four businesses—last of all in a stamp-shop at East Dene, while the Donnans have only succeeded in one—and are on the point of making another fortune in the second. But let them ask Elizabeth. She will not say 'no'!"

"What of her mother?" I said—"her father?"

"Her mother cannot support her—her father won't. In six months she will have to support them both!" said the philosophic Hugh John. "You ask Lizzie. Lizzie is a sensible girl."

I asked Hugh John how he knew.

"Oh, just—I know!" he answered shortly. And in another than Hugh John I should have suspected something. Because, you know, Elizabeth Fortinbras is a very pretty girl—not beautiful, but with a freshness and charm that does far better, a laugh that is hung on a hair-trigger; not much education, of course, because her stupid old frump of a mother—yes, I can say it, though Lizzie would not—has never permitted her to be long away from her, but must be served like a duchess in her room on pretext of headaches and megrims.

Being without a servant, she leaves Elizabeth to do all the housework, and all that she knows she has learned from the books I have lent her—and, as I now begin to suspect, Hugh John also.

"And where is Elizabeth?" I said, for I saw the three-draw glass hovering in the neighborhood of the Fortinbras Cottage.

"Why, where should she be?" cried Hugh John. "At this hour of Monday morning she will certainly be hanging out the week's wash! There, put your eye down, don't stir the telescope, and you will see her. Also her sister Matilda sitting under a tree doing nothing but reading the latest story her mother has got out of the library!"

Hugh John's grasp of detail was something marvelous.

And, indeed, as I looked, through the tremble of the heat-mist the slender figure of Elizabeth Fortinbras jigged into view. She was standing on tiptoe, like the girl in the old illustrated nursery Caldecott, when

Which would certainly have been a pity in Elizabeth's case, for the nose was a very pretty saucy one, and worthy of a better fate. She had on a short skirt. Her feet were thrust into sandals, and her white working blouse, open at the neck, had red peas on it. Concerning all which points Hugh John had nothing to learn.

Now I had always liked Elizabeth. There was something wild-wood and gay as a bird about her. She wore the simplest dresses, made by herself, and when she played in our woods there was a good deal of tomboy about her. She was older than any of us, and had often been our leader in high-spy or at running through the wood.

I could run faster, but (as Hugh John said) I ran like a boy, with my hands clasped and my elbows in. As for the way that Elizabeth ran, that was quite different. She ran—just like Elizabeth.

But the way she tossed about the youngsters was a sight. She romped with them among the hay. She thought nothing of bringing back Maid Margaret on her back for miles and miles, with a hop and a skip at every second pace, as if only to show how lightly her burden sat astride her shoulders, and how entirely impossible it was for Elizabeth herself to walk along in a sedate and ladylike way. Like a questing collie, she constantly left the highway. You could see her mount a bank as if she had wings. She was wayward, uncertain as a bird, fitful as a butterfly, changing her purpose with the whim of the children. Indeed, there was no one, in the opinion of all of us when we were little, like Elizabeth Fortinbras.

It was like spying out some shy fleeing wood-nymph to see her, with a few long, easy movements, springing and bounding across the stepping-stones of the upper river—or, the petticoat held daintily high, all in a faint flurry of white spray and whiter feet, negotiating the shallow ford at the first Torres Vedras when we were paddling there in the hot days.

Yet, when once across, she never seemed to have "shipped a drop," as Sir Toady Lion asserted in his best naval manner.

Rather, be it said, she gave herself a shake like a scudding swallow that has dipped its wing a little too deep in the pond, and lo! our Elizabeth was dry again. She never had so much as to preen a feather.

They always tell me that I am a little in love with Elizabeth myself, and I am not ashamed of it. Once, from his hiding-place, Hugh John showed me a young dainty fawn come stepping lightly through the wood. I saw it skip airily across the Esk below the second Torres Vedras, ascend the bank in three bounds, walk demurely across the road like a maiden coming out of church, look about her as if gathering her skirts for something daring, and then, with one sidelong bound, swift and light, lo, she was over the high paling and lost in the wood!

Elizabeth Fortinbras would have done it just like that, as gracefully and as unconsciously. But to think of her taking a place in the Donnan's Confectionery shop—surely his good angel had for once forsaken Hugh John—plan-maker to the world in general, and private domestic Solomon!

"Go and ask Elizabeth Fortinbras!" said Hugh John—and he said it as if he had good reason to know that Elizabeth would accept. Though that might only be his usual accent of quiet certainty. You see, Hugh John compels belief. Confidence accrues to his lightest guess, which is not accorded to Sir Toady on his oath. It is a shame that any one should be so favored by nature in the matter of his word. I, being a girl, am suspected of inaccuracy, Sir Toady of "monkeying," and Maid Margaret of knowing nothing about the matter.

But Hugh John may be inaccurate. He may be "monkeying" in secret, and he may know less than any one else about any matter. Nevertheless he is accredited like a plenipotentiary. He moves like Diogenes, his tub unseen about him. A calm certainty accompanies him. He inspires confidence, blind as that of a bank cashier in the multiplication table. All, too, without break, without insistence. To look at, he is just a tall lad, with singularly quiet manners, who looks at you fixedly out of gray eyes very wide apart. Only—you believe him.

But that is the reason why, in my secretest heart, as soon as Hugh John said, "Ask Elizabeth Fortinbras!" I knew that Elizabeth Fortinbras would accept.

I had to ask her myself. Or rather I took Mrs. Donnan with me, who did as she was told, smiling and stammering apologies in the proper places. As for me, I said what Hugh John had advised me to say, in our last long talk together up in the Cave.

Of course it was no use in the world consulting Elizabeth's parents. Her father was lost in dreams of making another fortune by a new and original butter-cooler which would put all others out of the market. Her mother, fretful and fine-ladyish, would declare that she could not do without her. But I knew that it would be an exceedingly good thing for her younger sister to get her nose taken out of the Penny Novelette. If Elizabeth went, she would have to do the housework, and so might yet save her soul—though as yet she had shown no signs of possessing any.

We talked to Elizabeth, however, or at least I did, without any mention of this. There were many knick-knacks about, on the mantelpiece, on the tables, on brackets set in corners—all the work of that ingenious, useless man, Mr. Robert Fortinbras. As we talked, Elizabeth moved gracefully about among these, her duster never hurried, never idle.

I never saw any one who could "play at work" as Elizabeth could. Any one else would have sat down and received her guests. Not so Elizabeth. If we chose to come at eleven o'clock in the morning—well, we must take her as we found her. In another quarter of an hour, if we stayed, we would be asked to come into her kitchen, and watch her peeling potatoes. And that would have seemed quite natural—not only to Elizabeth, but to us.

Elizabeth did not reply hastily. She heard me out without sign either of consent or of refusal. Mrs. Donnan, stout and motherly, purred acquiescence. Yes, they would give her the warmest welcome—if she cared to stay, the happiest home. But no doubt she would prefer to return to her own home at nights.

The next words which reached our ears were Elizabeth all over. "If I come, I shall stay," she said, "because if I went home, the work of the house would simply be left till I got back!"

The reason was clear, and almost the consent.

"Had you not better consult your father and mother?" I said, a little breathlessly, having been brought up in the faith of obedience to parents.

But in this matter Elizabeth, taught by long experience, had evolved other methods.

"I will tell them," she said simply. "When do you want me to begin? Monday? Very well!"

And it was on Tuesday that Nipper Donnan began to neglect his business.