ther's which I had read. So,
when they'd explained that the beautiful pink columns and the painted
oak screens looked new because Cromwell's men whitewashed everything
when they stabled horses in the Cathedral, and the white wasn't scraped
off till comparatively lately, long after the Cathedral was a prison in
1745, I told them something they hadn't learned, or had forgotten. I was
proud to have a story about Bruce coming to Carlisle to take his oath of
allegiance, before the great repentance, and hating the Cathedral ever
afterward.

Even the Castle doesn't look as splendid from outside as it really is.
It's like an enormous box, a good deal battered and patched, containing
a kingdom's treasures. But of course I didn't know about the treasures
until I had been in.

I had set my heart on seeing the place, because, as I said to Mr.
Somerled, I may never come back to Carlisle once I begin to live with
mother and go about with her. It was a blow to be told at the entrance
gate where the public enters (and where there ought to be a moat, but
isn't) that the Castle was closed for repairs. Even a grown-up man like
Mr. Somerled, who has seen everything, looked disappointed; but I
suppose he couldn't fight his way in against the power of England; and
we should have turned ignominiously away if it hadn't been for Mrs.
James. "You are surely not aware," said she in the aristocratic,
long-worded way she has when she thinks of living up to the doctor (and
when she isn't in earshot of Grandma) "of the distinguished identity of
this gentleman. This"--with a wave of her tiny hand--"is the great
portrait painter, Somerled. I will not introduce him as 'Mr.,' for he is
as far above that designation as Shakespeare."

The poor wretch who had refused us was flabbergasted. "Excuse me a
minute, mum!" he muttered, and darted off to return with a young officer
before "the Great Somerled" had time to remonstrate. But, instead of
devoting undivided attention to the celebrity who must be appeased, the
officer looked at me, and we recognized each other. His face changed,
and I know mine did, because my cheeks felt as if some one had pinched
them. No wonder, because this had been my ideal for almost a year,
before I saw the photographs in shop windows of Robert Loraine, and I
had dreamed several times that I was engaged to him, with a gorgeous
diamond ring, and afterward that I was his widow in one of those sweet
Marie Stuart caps. It almost seem