She gave us six apiece, and I could not help noticing that, though The Seraph was the youngest and tenderest, his six were the most stinging.
When we had been sent to our bedroom to say our prayers, and change our pitifully inadequate night clothes for day things, I put the question that was burning in my mind.
"Did either of you see her?"
"Who?"
"Lucy, sitting there in the chair."
Angel's brown eyes were blank.
"I saw her clothes. What sickens me is that the dragon took that spy-glass. You see if I don't get it yet." (Mrs. Handsomebody was "the dragon" in our vernacular.)
"Did you see her, Seraph?"
The Seraph was sitting on the floor, his head on his knees. He raised a tear-flushed face.
"I'm 'most too cwushed to wemember," he said, huskily. "But I fink Lucy was fat. It's a vewy bad fing to be fat, 'cos the cane hurts worser."
I turned from such infantile imbecility to the exhilarating reflection that I was the only one to whom Lucy had shown herself—her chosen knight!
I was burning to do her service, yet the passage that led to the attic stronghold was well guarded. Two days had passed before I made the attempt.
[96]
