alive.

While she talked, she watched Marco as if she were always asking
herself some question about him. The Rat was sure that she liked him
and greatly admired his strong body and good looks. It was not
necessary for him to carry himself slouchingly in her presence and he
looked glowing and noble. There was a sort of reverence in her manner
when she spoke to him. She reminded him of Lazarus more than once.
When she gave them their evening meal, she insisted on waiting on him
with a certain respectful ceremony. She would not sit at table with
him, and The Rat began to realize that she felt that he himself should
be standing to serve him.

"She thinks I ought to stand behind your chair as Lazarus stands behind
your father's," he said to Marco. "Perhaps an aide ought to do it.
Shall I? I believe it would please her."

"A Bearer of the Sign is not a royal person," answered Marco. "My
father would not like it--and I should not. We are only two boys."

It was very wonderful when, after their supper was over, they all three
sat together before the fire.

The red glow of the bed of wood-coal and the orange yellow of the flame
from the big logs filled the room with warm light, which made a mellow
background for the figure of the old woman as she sat in her low chair
and told them more and more enthralling stories.

Her eagle eyes glowed and her long neck held her head splendidly high
as she described great feats of courage and endurance or almost
superhuman daring in aiding those in awesome peril, and, when she
glowed most in the telling, they always knew that the hero of the
adventure had been her foster-child who was the baby born a great noble
and near the throne. To her, he was the most splendid and adorable of
human beings. Almost an emperor, but so warm and tender of heart that
he never forgot the long-past days when she had held him on her knee
and told him tales of chamois- and bear-hunting, and of the
mountain-tops in mid-winter. He was her sun-god.

"Yes! Yes!" she said. "'Good Mother,' he calls me. And I bake him a
cake on the hearth, as I did when he was ten years old and my man was
teaching him to climb. And when he chooses that a thing shall be
done--done it is! He is a great lord."

The flames had died down and only the big bed of red coal made the room
glow, and they were thinking of going to bed when the old woman started
very suddenly, turning her head as if to listen.

Marco and T