"You must find a much better prince than I am for your princess, little maid. Cousin Rupert is a battered old gentleman, with no prince-like qualities. Princes are always young and handsome, with blue eyes and golden hair, and silver armour, and lots of other jolly things like that, aren't they, Miss Moore?" "Yes, certainly," she answered, rallying to his mood, and laughing brightly; "they always dress in silver armour, and the princesses never wear anything but white gowns." "Sometimes--green gowns do quite as well for princesses," he answered, glancing at the girl's well-made green gown, with eyes of commendation. "Green belongs to fairyland," he added, when again the colour flushed into her cheeks. "I believe that you and Baba have only quite lately come from that enchanted country--both the two of you, as my old nurse used to say." "We like fairyland--Baba and I," the girl said gently, "and we both hope, some day, to see the fairies inside the flowers, or dancing round one of their lovely rings. We have found ever so many fairy rings in the fields round here." She spoke with something of a child's eagerness, all her momentary embarrassment gone, and Rupert looked at her, with an increasing sense of approval. Cicely had not acted altogether unwisely, in deciding to give her small daughter this unknown, unvouched-for girl as a nurse. She was obviously a lady, and a cultured lady, and she possessed that nameless quality which never failed to appeal to Rupert's fastidious taste--the restful charm of the true gentlewoman. He liked this Miss Moore, he told himself, he distinctly liked her, and he inwardly commended Cicely's choice, whilst he said to Christina-- "And all this time I have most rudely left your question unanswered. You asked my name: it is Mernside--Rupert Mernside." "Oh!" was the only word that jerked itself out of Christina's lips, whilst her eyes gazed at him with an expression of such unmistakable dismay, that he looked at her in surprise. "Have you any unpleasant associations with my name?" he asked. "Has anybody called Mernside ever annoyed you?" "Oh, no!" she answered quickly. "Only--once I heard the name before--just R. Mernside--and I was surprised when--when it turned out to be your name too." The words were so incoherent, the sentence so oddly turned, that Rupert only looked as he felt, more puzzled than before. "I had not ever seen you, had I, until I saw you in Baba's nursery?" he questioned. "No--never." She looked increasingly disconcerted, beneath his puzzled stare. "It was only--that I had heard--had come across the name before, and it--surprised me to hear--it again."