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THE GOLDEN AGE gold and green! But the persistent Harold was not to be fobbed off.

'Well then,' he began afresh, 'let's pretend we're Knights of the Round Table; and (with a rush) I'll be Lancelot!'

'I won't play unless I'm Lancelot,' I said. I didn't mean it really, but the game of Knights always began with this particular contest.

'O please,' implored Harold. 'You know when Edward's here I never get a chance of being Lancelot. I haven't been Lancelot for weeks!'

Then I yielded gracefully. 'All right,' I said. 'I'll be Tristram.'

'O, but you can't,' cried Harold again. 'Charlotte has always been Tristram. She won't play unless she's allowed to be Tristram! Be somebody else this time.'

Charlotte said nothing, but breathed hard, looking straight before her. The peerless hunter and harper was her special hero of romance, and rather than see the part in less appreciative hands, she would have gone back in tears to the stuffy schoolroom. 40