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252 had learned from his tutors in James the First's time.

It is not in the nature of any child to brood continually on the past or the future. The child lives in the present. And Dickie lived at Arden and loved it, and enjoyed himself; and Lord Arden bought him a pony, so that his lame foot was hardly any drag at all. The other children had a donkey-cart, and the three made all sorts of interesting expeditions.

Once they went over to Talbot Court, and saw the secret place where Edward Talbot had hidden his confession about having stolen the Arden baby, three generations before. Also they saw the portrait of the Lady Talbot who had been a Miss Arden. In rose-coloured brocade she was, with a green silk petticoat and and [sic] her powdered hair dressed high over a great cushion, but her eyes and her mouth were the eyes of Dickie of Deptford.

Lady Talbot was very charming to the children, played hide-and-seek with them, and gave them a delightful and varied tea in the yew arbour.

"I'm glad you wouldn't let me adopt you, Richard," she said, when Elfrida and Edred had been sent to her garden to get a basket of peaches to take home with them, "because just when I had become entirely attached to you, you would have found out your real relations, and where would your poor foster-mother have been then?"

"If I could have stayed with you I would,"