“Mrs. Buckley’s baby,” was his first thought.  “I wonder where that queer little Mary is,” was his second.  And his third, it came when he was tired of waiting for some solution of his second, was an embarrassed realization that he would be obliged to take his unexpected guest home to its mother.  And the quiet town of Arcady rocked upon its foundations as he did it.

“In the church,” marveled Mrs. Buckley.  “How careless of Mary!” she apologized, and “How good of you!” she smiled.  “No, I’m not in the least worried.  She always had a way of trotting off to her own diversions when she was not with her father.  And lately she has been astonishingly patient about spending her time with baby.  I have felt quite guilty, about it.  But after to-day she will be free, as Mr. Buckley has found a nurse to relieve her.  He was beginning to grow desperate about Mary and me—­said we neither of us had a moment to waste on him—­and yet could not find a nurse whom we felt we could afford.  And yesterday a young woman walked into his office to put an advertisement in his paper for just such a position as we had to offer.  She is a German, wants to learn English, and she will be here this afternoon.”

“Perhaps your little girl resented her coming,” he suggested vaguely.  “Perhaps that was the reason.”

“Mary resentful!” laughed Mrs. Buckley.

“She doesn’t, bless her gentle little heart, know the meaning of the word.  Besides which we haven’t told her about the girl, as we are rather looking forward to that first interview, and wondering how Mary will acquit herself in a conversational Waterloo.  She can’t, you know, make life miserable and information bitter to a German who speaks no English.  ‘Ja’ or ‘nein’ alternately and interchangeably may baffle even her skill in questioning.”

Mary, meanwhile, was hurrying along the way to Camelot.  She had not planned the expedition in advance.  Rather, it was the inevitable reaction toward license which marks the success of any revolution.  She had cast off the bonds of the baby carriage, her time and her life were her own, and the road stretched white and straight toward Camelot.

It was afternoon and the sun was near its setting when at last she reached the towered city and found it in all ways delightful but in some surprising.  She was prepared for the moat and for the drawbridge across it, but not for the exceeding dirtiness of its water and the dinginess of its barges.  She had expected it to be wider and perhaps cleaner, and the castles struck her as being ill-adapted to resist siege and the shocks of war since nearly all their walls were windows.  And through these windows she caught glimpses of the strangest interiors which ever palaces boasted.  Miles and acres of bare wooden tables stood under the shade of straight iron trees.  From the trees black ribbons depended.  In the treetops there were wheels and shining iron bars, and all about the tables there were other iron bars and bolts and bands of greasy leather.