Page:Pagan papers.djvu/174

162 Wee Folk were under a cloud: sceptical hints had embittered the chalice. So I was fain to fetch Arthur—second favourite with Charlotte for his dames riding errant, and an easy first with us boys for his spear-splintering crash of tourney and hurtle against hopeless odds. Here again, however, I proved unfortunate: what ill-luck made the book open at the sorrowful history of Balin and Balan? 'And he vanished anon,' I read; 'and so he heard an horne blow, as it had been the death of a beast. "That blast," said Balin, "is blowen for me, for I am the prize, and yet am I not dead. Charlotte began to cry: she knew the rest too well. I shut the book in despair. Harold emerged from behind the arm-chair. He was sucking his thumb (a thing which members of the Reform are seldom seen to do) and he stared wide-eyed at his tear-stained sister. Edward put off his histrionics, and rushed up to her as the consoler—a new part for him.

'I know a jolly story,' he began. 'Aunt Eliza told it me. It was when she was somewhere over in that beastly abroad'—(he had once spent a black month of misery at Dinan)—' and there was a fellow there who had got