your bag, and the Miser was there too?" Virginia spoke in patient toleration of Miss Bentley's strange lapse of memory. 

 "Naturally I was rather shaken and didn't notice. Was it a Candy Man who picked me up? And a miser, you say?" Chin in hand Margaret Elizabeth regarded her visitor. "It is all very interesting, but why should the Candy Man wish to know about me?" 

 Virginia owned that she had mentioned the Little Red Chimney to him, and that when the identity of her ladyship had come to light, he had exclaimed, "I might have guessed!" 

 "Well, really," said Miss Bentley, sitting up very straight, "what business is it of his to be guessing about me?" 

 "He isn't Irish like Tim," Virginia hastened to assure her. "He's very nice. He's a friend of mine." 

 Margaret Elizabeth laughed. "That makes it all right, I suppose; and if he picked me up—But who is the Miser?" 

 "He lives over there," Virginia pointed toward the front window, "in that stone house with the vine on it. Aleck says he has rooms and rooms full of money." 

 The house she indicated was almost black with time and soot, but its fine proportions suggested spacious, high-ceiled rooms, and whatever its present condition, a past of dignity and importance. 

 "How extremely interesting! What a remarkable neighbourhood this seems to be!" 

 "Is it like a fairy-tale where you stay when you aren't here?" Virginia asked. 

 Sudden illumination came to Margaret Elizabeth. "That is just what it isn't," she cried. "It's splendid and beautiful, and all sorts of things, except a fairy-tale. I wonder why? I love fairy-tales and Little Red Chimneys." 

 "So does the Candy Man," exclaimed Virginia, charmed at the coincidence. "It must be fun to be a Candy Man," she continued. "It isn't much like a fairy-tale where I live. I should like to live in a sure-enough house with stairs." 

 "You talk like a squirrel who lives in a tree. And speaking of squirrels, you and I must buy some nuts for our bunny sometime, from this Candy Man. If he picked me up I suppose I ought to patronise him. All the same, Virginia," and now Miss Bentley spoke with great seriousness, "I wish you not to say anything about me to him. It is rather silly, you know." 

 Prev. P 29/76 next