assented Lloyd, "I can't tell it with as many frills and
flourishes as Betty could, but I remembah it bettah than most stories,
because I had to write it from memory." Drawing the glittering cloak
closer around her, she began as if she were reading it, in the very
words of the green and gold volume:

"'Now there was a troubadour in the kingdom of
Arthur, who, strolling through the land with only
his minstrelsy to win him a way, found in every
baron's hall and cotter's hut a ready welcome.'"

Here and there she stumbled over some part of it, or told it
hesitatingly in her own words, but at last she ended it as well as Betty
herself could have done:

"So Ederyn won his sovereign's favour, and, by his
sovereign's grace permitted, went back to woo the
maiden and win her for his bride. Then henceforth
blazoned on his shield and helmet he bore the
crest, a heart with hand that grasped a spear,
and, underneath, the words, 'I keep the tryst.'"

"That's a corking good motto," said Rob as she paused. "I like that
story, Lloyd, and I'll remember it when I keep the engagements that I
put down in this little book."

He sat a moment, flipping the leaves and whistling a bar from "The Old
Oaken Bucket."

"Stop!" commanded Lloyd, suddenly, clapping her hands over her ears, and
making a wry face. "You're off the key. Haven't I told you a thousand
times that it doesn't go that way? This is it."

Puckering up her lips, she whistled the tune correctly, and he joined
in. At the end of the chorus he looked at his watch.

"It's been like old times this afternoon," he said. "I'll tell you what,
Lloyd, let's come up here once a year after this, just to keep tryst
with our old playtimes. I'll put that down as the first engagement in my
memorandum-book. A year from to-day we'll take another look at these
things."

"All right," assented Lloyd, cheerfully. Then a wistful expression crept
into her eyes as she peered through the tiny attic window. Twilight was
falling early on account of the rain. A deep gloom began to settle over
her spirits also.

"Rob," she said, slowly, "I haven't told you yet. I didn't want to spoil
our aftahnoon by thinking about it any moah than I could help, and you
made me almost forget it for a little while. I couldn't talk about it
when you first came without crying,--this yeah is going to be _such_ a
long, hah'