with perfume, so that from head to foot he smelt as sweet and clean
as a drift of rose-mallows.

"My soul!" cried Carew, stepping back and snapping his fingers with
delight. "Thou art the bravest skylark that ever broke a shell! Fine
feathers--fine bird--my soul, how ye do set each other off!" He took
Nick by the shoulders, twirled him around, and, standing off again,
stared at him like a man who has found two pound sterling in a
cast-off coat.

"I can na pay for them, sir," said Nick, slowly.

"There's nought to pay--it is a gift."

Nick hung his head, much troubled. What could he say; what could he
think? This man had stolen him from home,--ay, made him tremble for his
very life a dozen times,--and with his whole heart he knew he hated
him--yet here, a gift!

"Yes, Nick, it is a gift--and all because I love thee, lad."

"Love me?"

"Why, surely! Who could see thee without liking, or hear thy voice and
not love thee? Love thee, Nick? Why, on my word and honour, lad, I love
thee with all my heart."

"Thou hast chosen strange ways to show it, Master Carew," said Nick, and
looked straight up into the master player's eyes.

Carew turned upon his heel and ordered the dinner.

It was a good dinner: fat roast capon stuffed with spiced carrots;
asparagus, biscuit, barley-cakes, and honey; and to end with, a flaky
pie, and Spanish cordial sprinkled with burnt sugar. With such fare and
a keen appetite, a marvelous brand-new suit of clothes, and Cicely
chattering gaily by his side, Nick could not be sulky or doleful long.
He was soon laughing; and Carew's spirits seemed to rise with the boy's.

"Here, here!" he cried, as Nick was served the third time to the pie;
"art hollow to thy very toes? Why, thou'lt eat us out of house and
home--hey, Cicely? Marry come up, I think I'd best take Ned Alleyn's
five shillings for thine hire, after all! What! Five shillings? Set me
in earth and bowl me to death with boiled turnips!--do they think to
play bob-fool with me? Five shillings! A fico for their five
shillings--and this for them!" and he squeezed the end of his thumb
between his fingers. "Cicely, what dost think?--Phil Henslowe had the
face to match Jem Bristow with our Nick!"

"Why, daddy, Jem hath a face like a halibut!"

"And a voice like a husky crow. Why, Nick's mere shadow on the stage is
worth a ton of Jemmy Bristows. 'Twas casting pearls before swine, Nick,
to offer thee to Henslowe and Alleyn; but we've found a