“Come with us, Infanta,” he said, pausing at the door of the carriage.  “I am to have my drive early to-day, as the ladies are going to this great garden-party.”

Sydney said she would walk home with Mrs. Brownlow, and be taken up when Babie was set down.

Fordham gave the word to go to the binder’s.

“I should have thought you had better have gone into some clearer air,” said his mother, for he looked very languid.

“There will be time for a turn in the park afterwards,” he said; “and the books were to be ready yesterday, if there is any faith in binders.”

The books were ready, and Fordham insisted on having them deposited on the seat beside him, in spite of all offers of sending them; and a smiling—-

“Oh, Duke, your name should have been Babie,” from his mother.

They then drove to Cecil’s house, where Mrs. Evelyn went in to let Esther know her hour of starting; but where Cecil came running down, and putting his head into the carriage, said—-

“Come in, mamma; here’s the housemaid been bullying Essie, and she wants you to help her.  These two can go round the park by themselves, can’t they ?”

“Those are the most comical pair of children,” said Fordham, laughing, as the carriage moved on.  “Will Esther ever make a serene highness?”

“It is not in her,” said Babie.  “It might have been in Jessie, if her General was not such a horrid old martinet as to hinder the development; but Essie is much nicer as she is.”

Meantime, Fordham’s fingers were on the knot of the string of his parcel.

“Oh, you are going to peep in?  I am so glad.”

“Since mamma is not here to laugh at me.”

“You’ll tell her you did it to please the Babie!”

“There, it is you that are doing it now,” as her vigorous little fingers plucked far more effectively at the cord than his thin weak ones.

Out came at last one of the choice dark green books, with a clematis wreath stamped on the cover, and it was put into Barbara’s lap.

“How pretty!  This is mother’s own design for the title-page!  And oh—-how capital!  Dr. Medlicott’s sketch of the mud baths, with Jock shrinking into a corner out of the way of the fat Grafin!  You have everything.  Here is Armine’s Easter hymn!”

“I wished to commemorate the whole range of feeling,” said Fordham.

“I see; you have even picked out the least ridiculous chapter of Jotapata.  I wish some one had sketched you patiently listening to the nineteen copy-books.  It would have been a monument of good nature.  And here is actually Sydney’s poem about wishing to have been born in the twelfth century:—-

“Would that I lived in time of faith,
When parable was life,
When the red cross in Holy Land
Led on the glorious strife. 
Oh! for the days of golden spurs,
Of tournament and tilt,
Of pilgrim vow, and prowess high,
When minsters fair were built;
When holy priest the tonsure wore,
The friar had his cord,
And honour, truth, and loyalty
Edged each bold warrior’s sword.”