did. But no one always wants to listen to the most perfect reading, and

this evening I noted with some consternation that Fiammetta was bored, and showed it.

She fidgeted, she yawned, she drummed with her fingers on the edge of her chair. Once she shuffled her feet, and Uncle Edward actually stopped and looked severely at me. I know he gave me the credit for all the small disturbances that occurred that evening, whereas I was still as a mouse, and far too interested in Fiammetta's frank manifestations of _ennui_ to have indulged in any myself.

At that time he was going through a course of Jane Austen, for whose works he had an enthusiastic admiration, and I remember thinking that he was rather like a Jane Austen person himself, and that she would have "done him" uncommonly well. The book he read was _Pride and Prejudice_, most witty and delightful to read in later life. But children miss the real savour of its caustic wit, and I know that it was as much over Fiammetta's head as over mine, even though she was so infinitely better versed in literature of all kinds than I. At seven Uncle Edward ceased, placing a marker in the page as he closed the book.

"Perhaps," he said, "Fiammetta already knows this book by heart and can tell me what comes next."

Fiammetta arose hastily from her chair with evident relief: "Oh, no," she said frankly, "that's not the sort of book one knows by heart. I don't think it's particularly interesting--do you?"

"I think it is a masterpiece," Uncle Edward replied, almost breathless with astonishment. "I hope that in a year or two Viola and Hermione will know it, and many others by the incomparable Jane, as well as they know their multiplication table."

"Do they know that awfully well?" asked Fiammetta. "I don't; the sevens and the nines are so muddling--my daddie quite agrees with me. May we go away now?"

In all my intercourse with Fiammetta, the thing that never failed of its joy and wonder was the way she nonplussed grown-up people. They seemed to have no suitable snub ready for her. She was not in the least impertinent, but neither was she deferential to their superior intelligence. In fact, she made us question sometimes whether they were so very intelligent. She lived on terms of such absolute equality with her father, such understanding affection existed between them, that it never occurred to Fiammetta to conceal her opinions or to pretend she liked things merely to please people who happened to be several years older than herself. She was quite prepared to show Uncle Edward good reasons for her lack of interest in _Pride and Prejudice_ as frankly as she afterwards gave them to me. But she had no opportunity, for I remember Aunt Alice hustled us out into the garden with almost unseemly haste, and we were set to play golf croquet, in which game Viola and Hermione excelled, I was only moderately good, and Fiammetta couldn't play at all. Naturally she did not enjoy herself much.

By lunch time on Saturday she was, as she herself put it, "thoroughly issasperated" with things in general. Never for one moment were we left alone. Something was arranged for every minute. The Staceys believed in organised games; "innocent pastimes varied by intellectual pursuits" was Uncle Edward's curriculum, and it would have been excellent had there been rather less of the innocent pastimes. Until quite recently the Staceys had lived in towns, and they had yet to learn that in the country children can find their own amusements with the greatest ease: that Dame Nature is an excellent M.C., and that the queer plays children invent for themselves are far more entrancing than any game that is played by rule.

Fiammetta looked quite pale and exhausted after a morning spent in rounders, clumps, golf croquet (she rested and watched us during this, as she firmly refused to play, but Fraeulein sat with her lest she should be dull), spelling-game, Puss-in-the-corner, and "Earth, air, fire, and water."

Observe the judicious admixture of active exercise and mental gymnastics.

While I was washing my hands for lunch she came into my room, shut my door--I'm afraid she banged it--locked it, and stood with her back against it.

"Janey, I want to go home," she announced. "I want to go back to the Court this afternoon. Will you ask them to drive us?"

"I can't," I exclaimed, aghast. "It would never do; we've been asked till Monday, and we must stay here till then."

"Why should I stay if I hate it?"

"Because it's all arranged; they'd never forgive us if we went home; it would be so rude."

She began to cry. "I'm so tired," she sobbed, "sick and tired of silly games that one can make so many mistakes in, and they keep showing you all the time. Janey, I can't go on with it."

I was horror-struck. The luncheon gong would ring in two minutes, and if Fiammetta was tear-stained there would be inquiries.

I flew to her with the towel in my wet hands, and put my arms round her. "Don't cry!" I besought her, "if you do, they'll think I've been pinching you, or something," and she began to laugh. She dried her eyes on the towel and then said irrelevantly, "Paul didn't come. Why isn't he here, too, to help bear it?"

"He wasn't asked," I said. "He doesn't do here at all."

"I don't do either," she protested; "it's a shame. When I think of Paul wandering about in that dear garden, _doing exactly what he likes_, I could scream."

"For mercy's sake don't," I said. "They'd want to know why, and _then_ what could you say?"

"Janey, after we've gone to bed and everything's quiet, may I come in and sleep with you? I wouldn't be so miserable then."

"It's a very little bed," I said dubiously, "and you're an awful fidget. I hear you in our room at home. You go round and round like a dog."

"I'll bring my bedclothes and sleep on the floor, and go back very early in the morning, then they'll never know."

To pacify her, I consented to this, well knowing which of us would sleep on the floor. In the afternoon they took us out in the motor, and this we enjoyed, for motors were then something of a novelty, and Uncle Edward did not come.

Tea passed off quite peacefully. After tea Viola again proposed to dance for us, and again Fiammetta politely but firmly gainsayed the suggestion unless she, too, might perform, which was not in the least what Viola wanted.

As the fateful hour of six approached I trembled, especially as Fiammetta left us without any explanation (we were gathered on the lawn in front of the drawing-room windows) and calmly walked into the house. I watched the slim blue figure vanish; presently she returned, carrying one of the Jungle books.

"What's the use of getting that just as we're going in to papa?" asked Hermy.

"It's because I've got to go in to Mr. Stacey that I've fetched it. I don't care for that book about Mr. d'Arcy, so I'll read this."

Hermy and Viola gasped, I quaked, Aunt Alice looked rather frightened; Fraeulein and Mademoiselle regarded Fiammetta with silent admiration.

"I don't think papa would like you to do that, my dear," Aunt Alice said gently. "You see, if he is kind enough to read to us, the least we can do is to listen carefully."

"Why, if we don't want to?" Fiammetta persisted. "If I mayn't read in there, may I stay out here and read?"

"Papa likes us _all_ to be present when he's so good as to read to us," Aunt Alice said more firmly. "It would never do for one of our guests to miss his reading. Give me that book, dear!"

Aunt Alice held out her hand for the book. Fiammetta put it behind her back: "Mrs. Stacey," she said earnestly, "I don't understand. Is it like church? Nurse says we go to church here because it's pleasing to the Almighty--we never go in London, daddie and I. Do we have to listen to Mr. Stacey because it's pleasing to the Almighty, or what?"

Aunt Alice lost her temper. "You must do as you are told," she said shortly. "Give me that book. I see papa at the window; he is ready for us."

With a sigh Fiammetta handed over the Jungle Book and we all filed into the drawing-room.

Uncle Edward sat in his usual chair, carefully placed so that the light fell at exactly the right angle upon his book. We all settled ourselves to listen respectfully, except Fiammetta, who, just as he was about to begin, stood up and said, "Mr. Stacey, do _you_ mind if I go into the garden instead of listening?"

Uncle Edward gazed at Fiammetta in the utmost astonishment: "Don't you want to hear the reading?" he asked.

"Not a bit," Fiammetta said firmly. "I know you do it for kindness and all that, but it _does_ bore me so. I asked Mrs. Stacey, but she seemed to think you'd mind ... you don't, _do_ you?" and she smiled in friendliest fashion at Uncle Edward.

"It is, of course," he said slowly, "a matter of pure indifference to me whether you are present or not."

"Thank you _so_ much," Fiammetta said sweetly. "You don't mind now, do you, dear Mrs. Stacey? And may I have the Jungle Book to take with me?"

She took the book from Aunt Alice's unresisting hands as she passed. She skipped out of the window and across the lawn. She arranged herself in a garden chair with a leg-rest, all in full view of the windows ... and Uncle Edward began to read.

He read for an hour and a half.

Even Aunt Alice looked three times at the clock during the last half-hour.

When at length he did finish, and Hermy and Viola and I were about to flee into the garden to hunt for Fiammetta, who had long ago tired of the Jungle Book and wandered away, he stayed us with a motion of his hand.

"I hope," he said gravely, "that you will let this evening's incident be a lesson to you, an object-lesson as to how a guest should _not_ behave."

Hermy and Viola looked duly disgusted at Fiammetta's conduct; I, as usual when confronted with Uncle Edward, looked foolish. None of the three of us made any remark. "Remember," he said, "that the perfect guest invariably falls in with every custom of his host. He becomes a part of the household. You understand?"

"Yes, papa," said Hermy and Viola in dutiful chorus; "we will always try to."

"And you, Janey, will you lay this lesson to heart?"

"Yes, Uncle Edward," I, too, said meekly; and then, feeling rather mean, I added, "but father says we ought to _ask_ our guests if they like things."

"Certainly," he replied coldly, "in reason; but you cannot disorganise the entire working of a household to please a guest. Especially," he added, with evident annoyance, "when that guest happens to be a spoilt, conceited child."

"I don't think Fiammetta is conceited," I pleaded, "but she's used to saying right out when she hates things----"

"That will do, Janey," Aunt Alice interposed hastily. "Run away, children, and find Fiammetta."

As we ran, I reflected that Uncle Edward certainly did not himself fulfil his definition of the perfect guest. When he stayed with us, poor father couldn't smoke a single pipe in the house, and all fruits that had any sort of a smell were banished from the _menu_.

We found Fiammetta at last in the garage, conversing with the chauffeur.

"He's really a much more interesting man than Mr. Stacey," she confided to me that night when she came to sleep in my bed the floor _was_ hard and rather cold--"he told me about all the accidents he's ever been in."

*XVII*

*A SOLDIER'S BUTTON*

His family could not understand why Teddy had such a passion for soldiers. Certainly his family neither inspired nor shared it.

Papa declared them to be "elementary persons of a low standard of intelligence."

Mummy was mildly negative in her views. She did not, like papa, express actual disapproval of them as a class; they may even have had a dimly-felt attraction for her--she was very like Teddy in some ways--but she was a devoted wife, and it would never have occurred to her to champion any cause or individual disapproved of by papa.

Teddy's sisters, both considerably older than he--for he was only four--were facile echoes of their parents. And, after all, there was no earthly reason why any of the family should take any particular interest in soldiers. They had seen very few. When they did happen to come across a body of men in uniform marching to the strains of a military band, they doubtless thrilled for a moment like everybody else; then the soldiers and all they stood for vanished from their minds as from their sight.

But it was otherwise with Teddy. He thought about soldiers, dreamed of soldiers, talked about soldiers, and asked incessant questions about soldiers all day long and with any one he could get to answer him. And this was the more surprising inasmuch as he was not naturally a talkative child, being of a somewhat taciturn and ruminative disposition. It annoyed papa, for, quiet and biddable as Teddy was in every other respect, his enthusiasm for the soldier subject was such that no amount of snubbing could keep him off it.

And it started this way. One year, on their way to the Highlands, they stayed in Edinburgh for the month of July. A friend of papa's lent them his flat. The flat was in Ramsay Gardens, and Teddy's nursery window looked over the Castle Esplanade. The Black Watch was stationed at the Castle just then, and from his window Teddy beheld them drilling. He was always seeing them when he went out, and whensoever he did see them, singly or in companies, he was thrilled to the centre of his little soul. It is believed that his nurse shared his enthusiasm, but this was not known till long afterwards. But this much is certain, that when she and Teddy went out to take the air, whether he trotted by her side, or was seated proudly in his mail-cart, they seldom went in any direction that did not either lead to, or circulate round about, the evolutions of the Black Watch. Moreover, that regiment never marched in any direction whatsoever that Teddy and his nurse were not among the most palpitating of interested spectators.

Teddy's nurse was distinctly pleasing to the eye. Plump, fresh-coloured and very neat in her becoming uniform, she was of that superior order of nurses who are trained in institutions guaranteed to turn out guardians of the young not only medically competent to deal with every known form of infantile disease, but so deeply versed in psychology as to be able to draw out all that is best, and suppress anything that is evil, in a child's character.

Mummy had selected her with extreme care, and Teddy was almost entirely in her charge. Mummy went out a good deal, for both she and papa had many friends in Edinburgh whom they had not seen for a very long time. His sisters were under the dominion of a Fraeulein, so he and his nurse were left almost entirely to their own devices.

It was a beautiful July, and they were hardly ever kept indoors by bad weather. Teddy's cheeks grew round and rosy, his eyes bright and interested, so that his parents declared the keen bracing air was doing him all the good in the world. Up to that time he had been rather a pale, phlegmatic child.

To get from Princes Street to Ramsay Gardens one has to mount an exceedingly steep hill, pretty stiff walking for a pedestrian, and real hard work when you've got to push a mail-cart with a solid small boy in it. Yet very often his nurse would take Teddy to Princes Street Gardens in the afternoon, and generally on such occasions the band of the Black Watch discoursed sweet music from the band-stand.

On the return journey there always appeared some kindly kilted figure anxious to "gie the bairn a hurl" up the steepest part of the hill. Nurse was always very staid and dignified on such occasions. She accepted assistance, it is true, but with reservations. Moreover, she even tried to check Teddy's efforts in the way of conversation with his escort by time-worn aphorisms to the effect that little boys should be seen and not heard. But here she failed signally.

"When I'm a man," said Teddy, during one of these delicious "hurrls," "I hope I sail be a gate big soldier like you."

"You mean, my dear, that you hope you'll be an officer," nurse remarked loftily.

"A bave British officer," Teddy repeated obediently.

"That's the ticket," he of the kilt agreed cordially, quite unconscious of the implied snub. "I'd like fine to serve under ye mysel'."

"I expect you'll be an officer too by then," Teddy suggested.

The big soldier chuckled. "I'm no for onnything o' that sort," he said, shaking his head. "I'm for the Resairve--when I marry," he added, with a side glance at Teddy's pretty nurse.

"That will do, Mr. Macdonald," she said, laying a neatly-gloved hand on the handle of the mail-cart. "I can manage myself now; we are past the steepest part."

The soldier obediently relinquished the mail-cart. He saluted Teddy, and Teddy saluted him with great solemnity. Then, with quite equal solemnity he winked, and swung away down the hill again.

Papa's friend had lent his servants as well as his flat, and among them was a highland housemaid, called Campbell by the authorities but known among her fellows as Girzie. And so Teddy knew her. Of course, nurse was far too grand a person to consort with the other servants on familiar terms. She might, on occasion, when nobody else was present, unbend a little towards a sergeant-major in his splendid uniform, but she rigorously enforced the distance her "training" put between her and the servants, and they not even of her employer's household. All the same, nurse made no objection when Girzie offered to look after Teddy on such occasions as she wanted an afternoon off in the society of that same sergeant-major. And Girzie, who adored Teddy, was most accommodating.

Now Girzie had a brother in the Black Watch. It is true he was "only just a soldier," as Teddy put it, to distinguish him from the more highly-placed acquaintance of nurse, but he looked upon it as a distinct advantage, for under Girzie's guardianship he was allowed to converse freely with the short, thick-set man, who was so agreeably ready to answer questions.

From him Teddy learnt the true significance of dirks and sporrans and philabegs and plaids and badges, and many other things. The letter R was still a difficulty with Teddy, and he felt rather out of it among people who seemed to take a positive delight in giving that letter an almost undue prominence. Yet, though Girzie's brother did exclaim rather often, "eh! what's that you're sayin'?" they got on famously on the whole; and though it may not be wholly flattering to be addressed as "the wee stoot yen," yet Teddy overlooked the familiarity because of the affection in its tone.

He was something of an Elizabethan in his simplicity and jovial sense of fellowship with his kind. And the truth is that the atmosphere of Teddy's home was somewhat rarefied.

Papa was a Superior Person, quite excellent and kind in all his domestic relations, but in many respects what more ordinary mortals called a crank.

He had views, strong views, and he was apt to enforce them: not only upon his family, whom, of course, in consequence of these very views, he felt bound to influence, but also upon outsiders, who, if of a hasty disposition, were apt to wish papa at Jericho, or even in some still warmer place. He was also a person of many and vigorous antipathies, which he seemed to think entitled him to special consideration. Therefore did Teddy feel that the simple and jovial persons he encountered in Edinburgh filled a hitherto unsatisfied want in his nature, and he loved them dearly.

And they loved him; for the "wee stoot yen" was irresistibly frank and friendly and few of us are impervious to the flattery of such respectful admiration as Teddy's round face and blue eyes plainly manifested whenever he came across any of his friends in the Black Watch.

One day when he was out with Girzie she took him to the Arcade in Princes Street, and there bought him a doll dressed as a Highlander. Teddy was charmed with the present, though he could have wished that the china face under the fierce busby had been a thought less chubby and simpering, and what really did worry him was a feeling that there was something not quite right about the uniform. He didn't know what it was, and he was too well-bred and grateful to Girzie for her kind present to find any fault; but when on the way up the hill they met her brother, he at once pointed out several discrepancies, which he commanded Girzie to alter, explaining how it should be done. Girzie carried out his instructions that night, and next day they christened the doll "Colin Dougal," after the said brother, and it became Teddy's most precious possession.

Colin Dougal slept with him, ousting from that proud post a fluffy bird attached to an elastic that had hitherto possessed the privilege. Colin Dougal accompanied him in his mail-cart, and sat beside him at nursery meals; and to Colin Dougal Teddy used to sing, over and over again, the refrain of an old song he had learned from Girzie:--

"My love, she's in Dumbarton, Whaur they weir the tartan, Whaur they weir the tartan-- Faur abin the knee!"

It seemed quite fitting that anybody's love should dwell in a part of the country where they wore that entrancing costume, and Teddy felt certain that Dumbarton must be a specially delightful place, and was quite drawn to the lady. But always after singing it he was assailed by doubts as to whether Colin Dougal's tartan was quite short enough. Girzie had shortened it, but the exigencies of his china legs precluded the strict brevity of a kilt as worn by the Black Watch. Still, the tartan was the right tartan, and that was something.

The pleasant July days, so long and light, slipped speedily away, till an afternoon came when Teddy, returning from a walk with Girzie, found the nursery full of boxes, and nurse, who demanded the immediate surrender of Colin Dougal that she might pack him.

The little boy clasped his doll more firmly in his arms, looked round the dismantled nursery, and grim foreboding laid a chilly hand upon his heart.

"What do you want to pack for?" he asked breathlessly.

"Because we're going by an early train to-morrow, and mummy says everything must be ready to-night."

"Going!" he gasped. "Going where?"

"We're all going to Kingussie for August."

"I'm not going, I don't want to go. I want to stay here, wiv all my fends.... Do you," he asked anxiously, "want to go to Kingussie?"

Nurse looked flushed and rather cross.

"I'm not asked," she muttered, "what I want, nor you neither, Teddy. Give me that doll at once, and I'll pack him with the other toys."

Teddy stared stonily at her, nor made the smallest effort to surrender his doll.

"I'm not going," he said firmly, "not to-morrow. Why, I haven't said good-bye to none of them, have you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," said nurse huffily; "give me that doll at once, you know I don't allow disobedience."

And as she spoke she made a grab at the doll.

Teddy held on with all his strength. They were starting for Kingussie a day earlier than had been originally intended, and it had only been decided upon that morning. Mummy had taken it upon herself to send Girzie out with Teddy, leaving nurse free to pack. This had upset all nurse's plans, and left Sergeant-Major Macdonald kicking his heels during a vain wait at the bottom of the hill, while Girzie and Teddy went off in quite another direction. Therefore nurse was decidedly irritable, and rather roughly tried to pull Colin Dougal out of Teddy's arms.

For a full minute Teddy held on with all his little strength, then suddenly and despairingly let go. And at the same instant nurse also let go, remembering that it was undignified to struggle with a small child for the possession of a china doll.

Colin Dougal fell with a thump upon the floor, one of his china legs broke right in two, and the severed half leapt gaily under a chair.

Teddy took a deep breath and yelled and yelled and yelled.

Papa and mummy heard him in the drawing-room, and rushed to the nursery to see what had happened.

He was standing stock still just inside the door. Nurse had picked up Colin Dougal and the bit of his leg, and was vainly trying to explain to her demented charge that it could easily be mended.

But Teddy struck at her with both his hands, and refused to be comforted. He also continued to bawl with unabated vigour after his parents had entered the room.

"What's this? What's this?" exclaimed papa.

"Are you hurt, my precious?" mummy inquired tenderly, as she knelt beside her little boy.

Teddy did not repulse his mother, and managed to ejaculate in the middle of a roar, "I don't _want_ to go to Kingussie!"

The accident to Colin Dougal seemed a minor woe, caused by, and included in, this devastating news of departure.

"Nonsense!" papa exclaimed, looking pained; "not want to go to Kingussie! Why, it's country--real, beautiful, quiet country--far better than this place, with those infernal bugles braying from morning till night, and the horrid band, and air those tramping soldiers. You'll love Kingussie."

Teddy stopped afresh in the midst of renewed efforts in the way of yells to hiccough indignantly "not--'fernal bugles!"

Papa looked rather surprised, but his pained look returned as Teddy started to shout again at the top of his voice.

Nurse, taking advantage of the general confusion, packed Colin Dougal, and actually wrapped up the piece of his leg in a separate bit of paper with cold-blooded detachment.

Mummy reasoned, papa reasoned, and nurse, who had by this time recovered her Institutional serenity, spoke soothingly: but all to no avail. Teddy continued to scream, to lose his breath, and then roar with renewed vigour when he had got it again.

He really made a great to-do.

Finally papa and mummy departed in despair. Nurse went on packing, and Girzie, who had been listening at the end of the passage with her hand against her heart, came in and took the tired, miserable little figure into her kind strong arms and sat down on a chair.

"Eh, Master Teddy, and what'll the soldiers be thinkin' this night, to hear such an awfu' stramash in this respectable house ... an' both the windows open? They'll be fair affrontet to think the young gentleman they thought such a heap on could cry like a randy wife. They puir soldiers won't know what to make of it at all, at all."

And Girzie shook her head as though overcome with care.

Teddy sat up and stared at her, and though his breath still came in sobs he made no noise.

"Will they mind, Girzie?" he asked anxiously. "Will they 'eally mind?"

"Mind!" Girzie repeated. "Mind! They'll just be that upset--and you almost like one o' them."

"Colin Dougal's broken his leg."

"Well, he'll get over that. My brother broke his leg at the football, and look at him now!"

"But we're going away, Girzie, ... and I haven't said good-bye to nobody, not to your Colin Dougal nor no one."

"Never fear but he'll see ye to say good-bye--but not if you cry--an' you going to be a grand officer gentleman some day. Soldiers don't cry, laddie. It would be the very last thing they'd think of doing."

"Not if they're hurted in their hearts?--nor never?"

"Not that any other person could see or hear them, you may depend on that. And you mustn't cry either, any way not so loud that folk could hear ye right across the Esplanade. Listen, laddie, we'll no forget you. My brother's just fair taken up wi' you, and he's sent you this--for a bit keepsake. It's one o' his buttons made into a safety-pin, and when you're a wee thing bigger you'll wear it to hold down your tie ... if nurse'll let you," she added hastily, with an anxious glance at nurse, who continued to pack in absorbed silence.

Eagerly Teddy untied the little packet, and there was a real soldier's button mounted as a safety-pin.

"When can I have a tie?" he asked eagerly.

Nurse came over to them and stood looking down at the little pin. Her face softened. "I've got one rather like that, myself," she said. "You can fasten it in your blouse whether you have a tie or not. No one would notice."

"Can I wear it always?" he asked.

"Yes, if you like," nurse said graciously, "and perhaps it will help you to remember not to cry when you fall down."

Girzie said nothing, but she fastened the brooch so that the button shone resplendent just above the ribbons that tied Teddy's sailor blouse.

"I will remember," he said solemnly.

"Are you sorry you were so naughty?" nurse asked, ever desirous to improve the occasion.

"No," said Teddy firmly. "I hate Kingussie."

But after all he didn't hate Kingussie. He would have liked it immensely but that it rained nearly all the time. July seemed to have used up all the nice weather, and August was very cold and wet. He got one chill on the top of another, and sneezed and snuffled, and snuffled and sneezed, and lost all the pretty pink colour in his cheeks that he had gained in Edinburgh.

Kingussie is a beautiful place with woods and streams and a glorious golf links covered with short springy turf. Their lodgings were right on the top of a hill, and the view from the windows was very lovely, but even the loveliest view palls when it can only be seen through a veil of driving rain.

Towards the end of their stay Teddy alarmed his family by falling really