not counting you, of course.'

'That's rather why I came. A lady here wants to see you.'

'What about?' said Dan cautiously.

'Oh, just Kingdoms and things. She knows about Kingdoms.'

There was a lady near the fence dressed in a long dark cloak that hid
everything except her high red-heeled shoes. Her face was half covered
by a black silk fringed mask, without goggles. And yet she did not look
in the least as if she motored.

Puck led them up to her and bowed solemnly. Una made the best
dancing-lesson curtsy she could remember. The lady answered with a long,
deep, slow, billowy one.

'Since it seems that you are a Queen of this Kingdom,' she said, 'I can
do no less than acknowledge your sovereignty.' She turned sharply on
staring Dan. 'What's in your head, lad? Manners?'

'I was thinking how wonderfully you did that curtsy,' he answered.

She laughed a rather shrill laugh. 'You're a courtier already. Do you
know anything of dances, wench--or Queen, must I say?'

'I've had some lessons, but I can't really dance a bit,' said Una.

'You should learn then.' The lady moved forward as though she would
teach her at once. 'It gives a woman alone among men or her enemies
time to think how she shall win or--lose. A woman can only work in man's
playtime. Heigho!' She sat down on the bank.

Old Middenboro, the lawn-mower pony, stumped across the paddock and hung
his sorrowful head over the fence.

'A pleasant Kingdom,' said the lady, looking round. 'Well enclosed. And
how does your Majesty govern it? Who is your Minister?'

Una did not quite understand. 'We don't play that,' she said.

'Play?' The lady threw up her hands and laughed.

'We have it for our own, together,' Dan explained.

'And d'you never quarrel, young Burleigh?'

'Sometimes, but then we don't tell.'

The lady nodded. 'I've no brats of my own, but I understand keeping a
secret between Queens and their Ministers. _Ay de mi!_ But with no
disrespect to present majesty, methinks your realm is small, and
therefore likely to be coveted by man and beast. For example'--she
pointed to Middenboro--'yonder old horse, with the face of a Spanish
friar--does he never break in?'

'He can't. Old Hobden stops all our gaps for us,' said Una, 'and we let
Hobden catch rabbits in the Shaw.'

The lady laughed like a man. 'I see! Hobden catches conies--rabbits--for
himself, and guards your defences for you. Does he make a profit out of
his coney-catching?'

'We n