At first Merrylips found it easy to be brave. She was given a pretty new cloak and gown. She was pitied by the serving-maids, and envied by her sisters, and petted by her brothers, because she was going on a long journey. Better still, she found it easy to be, not only brave, but merry, like herself, on the autumn morning when she was mounted on a pillion behind one of the serving-men in her father's little cavalcade. For, girl though Flip had called her, she was leaving Walsover at last on that wondrous journey to great London town. For five long days they rode among the scenes that Merrylips knew from her father's tales. They passed through fields that were brown with autumn, and villages where homely smoke curled from the chimneys. They clattered through towns where beggar children ran at the horses' stirrups and whined for ha'pennies. They crossed great wastes of common, where Merrylips half hoped that they might meet with padders, so sure was she that her father and his stout serving-men could guard her from all harm. For four wonderful nights they halted at snug inns, where civil landladies courtesied to Merrylips. They supped together, Merrylips and her father, and he plied her with cakes and cream and oyster pies that she felt her mother would have forbidden. After supper she sat on his knee, while he sipped his claret by the blazing fire, till for very weariness she drooped her head against his shoulder and slept. Then, if she woke in the night, she would find herself laid in a big, strange bed, and she would wonder how she had ever come there. A happy journey it was, through the clear autumn weather! But the happiest day of all was the one when, toward sunset, Merrylips was shown a pile of roofs, where spires and towers rose sharp against the pale glow of the eastern sky. Yonder was London, so her father said. A little later, in the twilight, they were clattering through paved streets. Above them frowned dim houses, and on all sides were hurrying folk that jostled one another. This was London, Merrylips said over and over to herself, and in the London of her dreams she planned to have many gay hours, like those of the days that were just passed. But in this Merrylips was sadly disappointed. Next morning Sir Thomas, who had been her playmate since they left Walsover, was closeted with some of his friends,--men who wore long swords and talked loudly of church and king. He had no time to spend with his little daughter, so Merrylips had to go walk with Mawkin, the stout Walsover lass who was to wait upon her, and a serving-man who should guard them through the streets.