Page:Zodiac stories by Blanche Mary Channing.pdf/289

272 "Hubert is ready! Hubert is waiting for me! I must go to shoot with my beautiful new bow. Oh, Mother, you don't want me to stay, do you? I am longing to try my arrows."

The Duchess looked wistfully at his eager face.

"Go, my son, if Hubert is ready," she said, but a bright tear fell, as she looked after him.

Half an hour afterwards Conrad stood leaning on his bow in a forest glade. He looked discontented and vexed. Old Hubert was picking up the three arrows which he had lately shot, and which had, this time, and each time before, missed their target.

"You don't know how to shoot," said a strange voice near by.

Conrad turned sharply, and saw a strongly-built lad of about his own age, brown-skinned and brown-eyed, with shabby clothes and bare feet.