little of the
speech, but she could see that the stocking needed washing; so without
more ado she plunged it into the soapsuds, and in five minutes it was
as clean as the day it came out of the shop, and was dried before the
fire. All this time the stranger had stood bolt upright in the centre
of the little room, swathed in the steam, and with the soap-bubble
still revolving round his head like a planet; and the little boy still
stared up at him, as if he never could stare enough.

When the stocking was quite dry the washerwoman rolled it up again in
the gold paper and gave it to the stranger, who put it back in the
pocket of his doublet. Then he took from the purse that hung at his
belt a new spade guinea, gave it a fillip into the air, and down it
fell in the little boy's lap. Then, with a third profound obeisance,
he made a long step back towards the door.

Up jumped the little boy in a great hurry and excitement.

'If you please, sir,' he cried out, 'who are you?'

The stranger stopped; and as the steam from the wash-tub wound around
him more and more, and the soap-bubble burst on the bridge of his
aquiline nose, he replied--

'Little boy, I am an Appanage of Royalty!'

'Please will you give me your yellow cap?' asked Raymond again.

'Not to-day,' said the Appanage of Royalty, with a queer smile.

'To-morrow, then?' demanded Raymond.

'Some day--perhaps!' the other replied, still with that queer smile.
And then he disappeared; but whether he dissolved into steam, or
exploded like a soap-bubble, or went out by the door in the regular
way, the little boy could never be quite sure. It was enough for him
that an Appanage of Royalty had said that some day, perhaps, he would
give him his gold cap. And Raymond never forgot this adventure; and
as a kind of pledge of its reality he ever afterwards wore the spade
guinea round his neck by a silken string. He believed that sooner or
later it would be the means of bringing him fame and greatness.

CHAPTER II.

THE GOLDEN PLEDGE.

One fine May morning, while Rosamund was churning in the dairy-room of
the Brindled Cow, she heard some one walk into the bar. The step was
not that of any one of her familiar suitors. It was neither short
plump Armand, nor tall bulky Osmund, nor red-haired broad-cheeked
Phillimund, nor short-legged thick-necked Sigismund, who drank six
quarts of milk last Saturday; nor short-breathed apoplectic Dorimund,
who sang sentimental song