turning to her husband.
"I can't think who it is that he reminds me of. Where are the others?"

"I packed them off to bed. There's nothing to be done," said her
husband. "We ought to have gone after those men."

"They didn't get anything," she said.

"No--dropped it all when I fired. Come on, let's turn in. Poor Eleanor,
you must be worn out."

"Edward," said the lady, "I wish we could adopt that little boy. I'm
sure he comes of good people--he's been kidnapped or something."

"Don't be a dear silly one!" said Sir Edward.

* * * * *

That night Dickie slept in sheets of the finest linen, scented with
lavender. He was sunk downily among pillows, and over him lay a down
quilt covered with blue-flowered satin. On the foot-board of the great
bed was carved a shield and a great dog on it.

Dickie's clothes lay, a dusty, forlorn little heap, in a stately
tapestry-covered chair. And he slept, and dreamed of Mr. Beale, and the
little house among the furze, and the bed with the green curtains.

CHAPTER III

THE ESCAPE

WHEN Lady Talbot leaned over the side of the big bed to awaken Dickie
Harding she wished with all her heart that she had just such a little
boy of her own; and when Dickie awoke and looked in her kind eyes he
felt quite sure that if he had had a mother she would have been like
this lady.

"Only about the face," he told himself, "not the way she's got up; nor
yet her hair nor nuffink of that sort."

"Did you sleep well?" she asked him, stroking his hair with
extraordinary gentleness.

"A fair treat," said he.

"Was your bed comfortable?"

"Ain't it soft, neither," he answered. "I don't know as ever I felt of
anythink quite as soft without it was the geese as 'angs up along the
Broadway Christmas-time."

"Why, the bed's made of goose-feathers," she said, and Dickie was
delighted by the coincidence.

"'Ave you got e'er a little boy?" he asked, pursuing his first waking
thought.

"No, dear; if I had I could lend you some of his clothes. As it is, we
shall have to put you into your own." She spoke as though she were
sorry.

Dickie saw no matter for regret. "My father 'e bought me a little coat
for when it was cold of a night lying out."

"Lying out? Where?"

"In the bed with the green curtains," said Dickie. This led to Here
Ward, and Dickie would willingly have told the whole story of that hero
in full detail, but the lady said after breakfast, and