The Palace in the Garden

"I know thee not; but well my heart / Interprets, darling, what thou art; / Light of some old ancestral hall, / Queen-gem of some proud coronal! / For, certes, such a perfect grace, / Such lustrous loveliness of face, / Such artless majesty as thine / Proclaims thee of no sordid line! " / _The Unknown Portrait_ -- SIR NOEL PATON.

There was time the next morning, before Mr. Markham came, for coaxing a little oil out of Mrs. Munt, and fetching a feather from the poultry-yard, but for no more. For Mrs. Munt, kind as she was, very naturally objected to giving us the oil in one of the best tea-cups, which Gerald had brought for the purpose, thinking it must be "an old one," which it was indeed, though not in his sense of the word. So Tib ran off to the princess's tower for one of the doll ones, and Gerald and I went in the other direction for a long feather. And by the time that we were ready for operations, it was within a quarter of an hour of lessons, and being rather sensible children in some ways -- we had early learnt experience and responsibility in our own affairs, having no one to advise or arrange for us in such matters -- we decided it was better to wait till we were sure of plenty of, and uninterrupted, time.