ments
in the days to come.

Her friends were not the least too tired, thank you, after the journey,
to be shown the great drawing-room, on which the touching incident in
the life of a Royal Personage had conferred an historical dignity. "I
think--" said she "--only I haven't quite made up my mind yet--that I
shall call this ward Mrs. Fitzherbert, and the next room Princess
Caroline. Or the other way round. Which do you think?" For one of her
schemes was to turn the old family mansion into a Hospital.

"Let me see!" said Gwen. "I've forgotten my history. Mrs. Fitzherbert
was his wife, wasn't she?"

Miss Dickenson was always to be relied on for general information.
"Unquestionably," said she. "But he repudiated her for political
reasons, a course open to him as heir to the throne. Legally, Princess
Caroline of Brunswick was his lawful wife...."

"And, lawfully," said Gwen, "Mrs. Fitzherbert was his legal wife.
Nothing can be clearer. Yes--I should say certainly call the big room
Mrs. Fitzherbert. Whom shall you call the other rooms after, Clo?"

"All the others. There's any number! Mrs. Robinson, Lady Jersey, Lady
Conyngham ... one for every room in the house, and several over. Just
fancy!--the room has never been altered, since those days. It was
polished up for my poor mother--whom no doubt I saw in my youth, but
took no notice of. You see, I wasn't of an age to take notice, when she
departed to Kingdom-come, and my father exiled himself to Scotland...."

"And he kept it packed up like this--how long?"

"Well--you know how old I am. Twenty-seven."

Aunt Constance corrected dates. "George the Fourth," said she
chronologically, "ascended the throne in 1820. Consequently he cannot
have become intoxicated in this room...."

Sister Nora interrupted. Of course he couldn't--not in her father's
time. The cards and dice were going in her great-uncle's time, who drank
himself to death forty years ago. "There used to be some packs of
cards," said she, "in one of these drawers. I know I saw some there,
only it's a long time back--almost the only time I ever came into the
room. I'll look.... Take care of the dust!"

It was lucky that the cabinet-maker who framed that inlaid table knew
his business--they did, in his day--or the rounded front might have
called for a jerk, instead of giving easily to the pull it had awaited
so patiently, through decades. "There they are!" said Gwen, "with
nobody to deal them. Poor cards--lo