To the children’s horror there sat at the further end of the room, facing the door beside a tea wagon and a small table with an alcohol kettle boiling upon it, Aunt Alida and a lady whom Beth and Dirk thought they had never seen before. This lady laughed at the apparition in the doorway and Aunt Alida smiled reassuringly to Beth. “No harm done, Beth dear. Come in, please. Evidently you did not know I was at home. Come and show us your costumes. To whom have I the honor of speaking? I see it is not Beth Bristead,” said Aunt Alida, holding out an inviting hand. Beth came forward shyly, but smiling as she saw sympathy and understanding in the stranger’s beautiful blue eyes. She was not precisely pretty; beside Aunt Alida’s brilliant beauty she looked almost plain. But her eyes were lovely, her bearing graceful and refined. Beth decided on the spot that she was “nice,” and that she need not mind being seen by this unknown lady in her costume. “We were playing that I was Mary, Queen of Scots, Aunt Alida,” said Beth. “Liebchen and Annunciata are ladies in waiting. Dirk is George Douglas, only he wouldn’t dress up. Out of ‘The Abbot,’ you know.” “Oh, really!” exclaimed Aunt Alida’s guest with an accent so unmistakably English that Beth recognized it. “How delightful to find children enjoying Sir Walter Scott! My little girl and boys won’t read an older classic than Kipling and Barrie. Will you present me to her majesty, Mrs. Cortlandt, please?” “In real life this is my husband’s niece, Elizabeth Bristead, my only son, Dirk, and two protégées of Beth’s. But now--Lady Harrowdene, I present you to her majesty, the Queen of Scotland. Queen Mary, graciously receive Lady Caroline Patricia, Countess of Harrowdene.” Aunt Alida arose to make the presentation and her guest also arose, making the profound courtesy required in a court presentation, her eyes laughing into Beth’s with a look half maternal, half a playmate’s. Beth caught her breath, her eyes widened in terror; she glanced at Aunt Alida to discover whether this introduction was part of a play, too. She remembered that Frieda had said that titled ladies came from across the sea in winter and were entertained by her aunt and uncle, and Aunt Alida did not seem to her to be making believe that her guest was a noble lady. But it seemed quite impossible to Beth that a countess should be present in the flesh, outside the pages of romance. Lady Harrowdene bent her head respectfully and said: “Your majesty, I rejoice to see that you are bearing so well the weary months and years of your captivity. Though I am English, I am heart and soul your slave, in spite of the circumstances which force me to live in the land reigned over by Elizabeth.” “Why don’t you say something?” Dirk whispered with a vigorous nudge. He had great pride in Beth’s flow of antique-sounding phrases which she usually employed in making believe.