’It would indeed, and when we came down here on a visit—­for I suppose we shall come down here sometimes on visits—­I should miss the picture dreadfully, so I don’t think I’ll ask him for it.  But I must take some pictures away with me.  There are a lot of old things in the lumber-room at the top of the house, that no one knows anything about.  I think I’ll ask him to let me have them.  I’ll take him for a good long ramble through the house.  He hasn’t seen any of it yet, except just the rooms we live in down-stairs.’

Emily went straight to Hubert.  He was lying in the long wicker chair, his straw hat drawn over his eyes, for the sun was finding its sharp, white way through the leaves of the beeches.

‘Now, Hubert, I want you.  Are you asleep?’

‘Asleep!  No, I was only thinking.’  He threw his legs over the edge of the low chair and stood up.

‘If I tell you what I want, you won’t refuse me, will you?’

‘No,’ he said smilingly; ‘I don’t think I shall.’

‘Are you sure?’ she said, looking at him enigmatically.  Then in a lighter tone:  ’I want you to give me a lot of things—­oh, not a great many, nothing very valuable, but——­’

‘But what, Emily?...  You can have anything you want.’

’Well, we shall see.  You must come with me; I must show you what—­I shan’t want them unless you like to give them.  Come along.  Oh, you must come.  I should not care about them unless you came with me, and let me point them out.’  She passed her little hand into the arm of his rough coat, and led him towards the house.  ’You know nothing of your own house, so before I go I intend to show you all over it.  You have no idea what a funny old place it is up-stairs—­endless old lumber-rooms which you would never think of going into if I didn’t take you.  When I was a little girl I wasn’t often allowed down-stairs:  the top of the house still seems to me more real than any other part.’  Throwing open a door at the head of the stairs, she said:  ’This used to be my nursery.  It is all bare and deserted now, but I remember it quite different.  I used to spend hours looking out of that window.  From it you can see all over the park, and the park used to be my great delight.  I used to sit there and make resolutions that next time I went out I would be braver, and explore the hollows full of bushes and tall ferns.’

‘Did you never break your resolutions?’

’Sometimes.  I was afraid of meeting fairies or elves.  There are glades and hollows that used to seem very wonderful.  And they still seem very wonderful, only not quite in the same way.  Doesn’t the world seem very wonderful to you?  I’m always wondering at things.  But I know I’m only a silly little girl, and yet I like to talk to you about my fancies.  Down there in the beech wood there is a beautiful glade.  I loved to play there better than anywhere else.  I used to lie there on a fur rug and play at paper dolls.  I always fancied myself a duchess or a princess.’