et any more sticks?" she said
presently. "Go and hunt about. Get some old hampers and matting and
things out of the tool-house. Smash up that old cucumber frame Edward
shoved you into, the day we were playing scouts and Mohicans. Stop a
bit! Hooray! I know. You come along with me."

Hard by there was a hot-house, Aunt Eliza's special pride and joy, and
even grimly approved of by the gardener. At one end, in an out-house
adjoining, the necessary firing was stored; and to this sacred fuel, of
which we were strictly forbidden to touch a stick, Selina went straight.
Harold followed obediently, prepared for any crime after that of the
pea-sticks, but pinching himself to see if he were really awake.

"You bring some coals," said Selina briefly, without any palaver or
pro-and-con discussion. "Here's a basket. I'll manage the faggots!"

In a very few minutes there was little doubt about its being a genuine
bonfire and no paltry makeshift. Selina, a Maenad now, hatless and
tossing disordered locks, all the dross of the young lady purged out of
her, stalked around the pyre of her own purloining, or prodded it with
a pea-stick. And as she prodded she murmured at intervals, "I knew there
was something we could do! It isn't much--but still it 's something!"

The gardener had gone home to his tea. Aunt Eliza had driven out for
hers a long way off, and was not expected back till quite late; and this
far end of the garden was not overlooked by any windows. So the Tribute
blazed on merrily unchecked. Villagers far away, catching sight of
the flare, muttered something about "them young devils at their tricks
again," and trudged on beerwards. Never a thought of what day it was,
never a thought for Nelson, who preserved their honest pint-pots, to
be paid for in honest pence, and saved them from litres and decimal
coinage. Nearer at hand, frightened rabbits popped up and vanished with
a flick of white tails; scared birds fluttered among the branches, or
sped across the glade to quieter sleeping-quarters; but never a bird nor
a beast gave a thought to the hero to whom they owed it that each year
their little homes of horsehair, wool, or moss, were safe stablished
'neath the flap of the British flag; and that Game Laws, quietly
permanent, made la chasse a terror only to their betters. No one seemed
to know, nor to care, nor to sympathise. In all the ecstasy of her
burnt-offering and sacrifice, Selina stood alone.

And yet--not quite alone