Her Kingdom by Amy Le Feuvre

MONDAY dawned bright and fair. The picnic on the lake was a great success. Ruffie was made comfortable with cushions in the boat, and the little girls were allowed to take an oar together, whilst the old gardener Stephen took the other. They rowed across to a small island, and landed there for lunch.

At six o'clock they came home; a rather tired but a very happy little party. Anstice had the art of making and keeping children so.

She overheard a conversation about herself between Ruffie and his sisters which rather amused her. She was planting a small bed with seedlings outside the library, and their voices came to her through the open window.

"I love Steppie."

This emphatically and a little defiantly from Ruffie.

"You've gone over pretty soon! I'm going to wait a month to see what she's like."

This was Josie speaking.

"Yes," said Georgie. "She may be just pretending to get us under her thumb, like the wicked witches do in the fairy stories."

"No," said Ruffie in his decided little voice, "her face couldn't be a witch's. She looks at me as if she-well, you know-liked me ever so."

"That's only the spell in her eye! I'm going to wait. If I find her out, it will be war at the end of the month."

"She wants to do nice things for us," went on Ruffie; "she's going to have flowers in the conservatory, and one end of it she's going to have doves and birds in a big room with trees and nests in it. She calls it an 'aviary."

"That's another spell," said Josie, but there was hesitation in her tone.

"Well, we've got a month to find out what she's like," said Georgie. "Anyhow, she doesn't worry us with lessons."

"But," said Anstice to herself, with a shake of her head, "that is exactly what I am going to do, my poor dears."

The very next day she set out on her errand to Mrs. Fergusson's.

The fine weather had suddenly departed. Rain and mist set in from over the Fells. But Anstice was indifferent to weather. She started out for her two-mile walk in waterproof coat and skirt, and revelled in the moist sweet air, and the scent of wet pines and earth as she passed along the wooded road. She turned up from the high road before long, and then winding up and down she reached a little cottage in front of a cluster of pines, with a magnificent view of the lake below, and the Fells beyond it.

The door was opened to her by the tall, handsome woman she had noticed in church.

"I must introduce myself to you," said Anstice with her happy smile; "but my husband, Mr. Holme, wished me to call upon you about a certain matter which is troubling us."

Mrs. Fergusson led her into a very cosy little sitting-room. A cheerful wood fire was burning in the grate. As she took her seat again after settling Anstice upon a comfortable couch, she took up some very pretty fancywork she was doing, and continued to sew, saying:

"I feel sure you will excuse my working. This is a cushion cover, an order which I must execute in time for a wedding the end of this month. I am very fond of needlework; I used to do a great deal when I was in Russia, and a certain firm in London gives me orders which helps with my son's education. He is at Harrow, and that costs money."