ood house for
a castle, an' then we can ask 'em to take us to board, an' if they wont
do it we'll go to the next, an' so on.'

"'All right,' says I, glad enough to see how pat he entered into the
thing.

"We walked a good ways, an' passed some little houses that neither of us
thought would do, without more imaginin' than would pay, till we came to
a pretty big house near the river, which struck our fancy in a minute.
It was a stone house, an' it had trees aroun' it, there was a garden
with a wall, an' things seemed to suit first-rate, so we made up our
minds right off that we'd try this place.

"'You wait here under this tree,' says he, 'an' I'll go an' ask 'em if
they'll take us to board for a while.'

"So I waits, an' he goes up to the gate, an' pretty soon he comes out
an' says, 'All right, they'll take us, an' they'll send a man with a
wheelbarrer to the station for our trunk.' So in we goes. The man was
a country-like lookin' man, an' his wife was a very pleasant woman. The
house wasn't furnished very fine, but we didn't care for that, an'
they gave us a big room that had rafters instid of a ceilin', an' a big
fire-place, an' that, I said, was jus' exac'ly what we wanted. The room
was almos' like a donjon itself, which he said he reckoned had once
been a kitchin, but I told him that a earl hadn't nothin' to do with
kitchins, an' that this was a tapestry chamber, an' I'd tell him all
about the strange figgers on the embroidered hangin's, when the shadders
begun to fall.

"It rained a little that afternoon, an' we stayed in our room, an' hung
our clothes an' things about on nails an' hooks, an' made believe
they was armor an' ancient trophies an' portraits of a long line of
ancesters. I did most of the make-believin' but he agreed to ev'rything.
The man who kep' the house's wife brought us our supper about dark,
because she said she thought we might like to have it together cozy, an'
so we did, an' was glad enough of it; an' after supper we sat before the
fire-place, where we made-believe the flames was a-roarin' an' cracklin'
an' a-lightin' up the bright places on the armor a-hangin' aroun', while
the storm--which we made-believe--was a-ragin' an' whirlin' outside. I
told him a long story about a lord an' a lady, which was two or three
stories I had read, run together, an' we had a splendid time. It all
seemed real real to me."

CHAPTER XV. IN WHICH TWO NEW FRIENDS DISPORT THEMSELVES.

"The nex' morni