"Ah, my lady fair!" she exclaimed, "what you have let out now makes a.s.surance doubly sure. And so you think you'll find the precious tankard in the bog! Now, now, what shall I do? How can I prevent your going any further on such a fool's quest? Ah, my pretty little ladies, my pretty Miss Rachel and Miss Kitty, I believe I did you a good turn when I hid that tankard away."

Nancy indulged in a few more expressions of self-congratulation then, a sudden idea coming to her, she fumbled in her pocket for a bit of paper, and scribbling something on it laid it on the sleeping lady's lap.

When Mrs. Lovel awoke, somewhere close on midday, she took up the little piece of paper and read its contents with startled eyes:

"Come what may come, tyde what may tyde, Lovel shall dwell at Avonsyde.

"False heirs never yet have thriven; Tankards to the right are given."

The last two lines, which Nancy had composed in a perfect frenzy of excitement and rapture at what she considered a sudden development of the poetic fancy, caused poor Mrs. Lovel's cheeks to blanch and her eyes to grow dim with a sudden overpowering sense of fear. She rose to her feet and pursued her way home, trembling in every limb.

CHAPTER XXV.--A DREAM WITH A MEANING.

Phil had a dream which had a great effect on him. There were several reasons for this. In the first place, it wanted but two days to the great 5th of May; in the second place, he was feeling really ill, so was making greater efforts than usual to conceal all trace of languor or weariness; in the third place, Rachel came to him about half an hour before he went upstairs to bed and burst out crying, and told him she knew something was going to happen. Rachel was not a child who was particularly given to tears, but when she did cry she cried stormily.

She showed a good deal of excitement of a pa.s.sionate and over-wrought little heart to Phil now, and when he questioned her and asked her why she was so excited about her birthday, she murmured first something about the lady of the forest and then about her mother, and then, afraid of her own words, she ran away before Phil could question her further.

Phil's own mother, too, seemed to be in a most disturbed and unnatural state. She was always conning a piece of paper and then putting it out of sight, and her eyes had red rims round them, and when Phil questioned her she owned that she had been crying, and felt, as she expressed it, "low." All these things combined caused Phil to lay his head on his white pillow with a weary sigh and to go off into the land of dreams by no means a perfectly happy little boy.

Once there, however, he was happy enough. In the first place, he was out of his bed and out of the old house, where so many people just now looked anxious and troubled; and, in the second place, he was in a beautiful new forest, his feet treading on velvet gra.s.s, his eyes gazing at all those lovely sights in which his little soul delighted. He was in the forest and he was well, quite well; the tiredness and the aching had vanished, the weakness had disappeared; he felt as though wings had been put to his feet, as though no young eagle could feel a keener and grander sense of strength than did he. He was in the forest, and coming to meet him under the shadows of the great trees was a lady--the lady he had searched for so long and hitherto searched for in vain. She came quite naturally and gently up to him, took his little hand, looked into his eyes, and stooping down she touched his fore head with her lips.

"Brave little boy!" she said. "So you have come."

"Yes," answered Phil, "and you have come. I have waited for you so long.

Have you brought the gift?"

"Beauty of face and of heart. Yes, I bring them both," answered the lady. "They are yours; take them."

"My mother," whispered Phil.

"Your mother shall be cared for, but you and she will soon part. You have done all you could for her--all, even to life itself. You cannot do more. Come with me."

"Where?" asked Phil.

"Are you not tired of the world? Come with me to Fairyland. Take my hand--come! There you will find perpetual youth and beauty and strength and goodness--come!"

Then Phil felt within himself the wildest, the most intense longing to go. He looked in the lady's face, and he thought he must fly into her arms; he must lay his head on her breast and ask her to soothe all his life troubles away.

"I know you," he said suddenly. "Some people call you by another name, but I know who you are. You give little tired boys like me great rest; and I want beyond words to go with you, but there is my mother."

"Your mother will be cared for. Come. I can give you something better than Avonsyde."

"Oh, I don't want Avonsyde! I am not the rightful heir."

"The rightful heir is coming," interrupted the lady of the forest. "Look for him on the 5th of May, and look for me too there. Farewell!"

She vanished, and Phil awoke, to find his mother sitting by his bedside, her face bent over him, her eyes wide open with terror.

"Oh, my darling, how you have looked! Are you--are you very ill?"

"No, mammy dear," answered the little boy, sitting up in the bed and kissing her in his tenderest fashion. "I have had a dream and I know what is coming, but I don't feel very ill."

Mrs. Lovel burst into floods of weeping.

"Phil," she said when she could speak through her sobs, "it is so near now--only one other day. Can you not keep up just for one more day?"

"Yes, mother; oh, yes, mother dear. I have had a dream. Hold my hand, mother, and I will try and go to sleep again. I have had a dream.

Everything is quite plain now. Hold my hand, mammy dear. I love you; you know that."

He lay back again on his pillows and, exhausted, fell asleep.

Mrs. Lovel held the little thin hand and looked into the white face, and never went to bed that night. Ever since her sleep in the forest she had been perturbed and anxious; that mysterious bit of paper had troubled her more than she cared to own. She was too weak-natured a woman not to be more or less influenced by superst.i.tion, and she could not help wondering what mysterious being had come to her and, reading her heart's secret, had told her to bid good-by to hope.

But all her fears and apprehensions had been nothing, had been child's play, compared to the terror which awoke in her heart when she saw the look on her boy's face as she bent over him that night. She knew that he bad never taken kindly to her scheme; she knew that personally he cared nothing at all for all the honors and greatness she would thrust upon him. He was doing it for her sake; he was trying hard to become a rich man some day for her sake; he was giving up Rupert whom he loved and the simple life which contented him for her. Oh, yes, because, as he so simply said, he loved her. But she laid too heavy a burden on the young shoulders; the long strain of patient endurance had been too much, and the gallant little life was going out.

On the instant, quick, quick as thought, there overmastered this weak and selfish woman a great, strong tide of pa.s.sionate mother's love. What was Avonsyde to her compared to the life of her boy? Welcome any poverty if the boy might be saved! She fell on her knees and wept and wrung her hands and prayed long and piteously.

When in the early, early dawn Phil awoke, his mother spoke to him.

"Philip dear, you would like to see Rupert again?"

"So much, mother."

"Avonsyde is yours, but you would like to give it to him?"

"If I might, mother--if I might!"

"Leave it to me, my son. Say nothing--leave it to me, my darling."

CHAPTER XXVI.--LOVE VERSUS GOLD.

"Katharine!"

"Yes."

"I have received the most extraordinary letter."

"What about, Grizel?"

"What about? Had you not better ask me first who from? Oh, no, you need not turn so pale. It is not from that paragon of your life, Rachel's and Kitty's mother."

"Grizel, I do think you might speak more tenderly of one who has done you no harm and who has suffered much."