"Here’s Mrs. Dew’s niece!" Edmund announced. "This is Montagu," he continued. "What’s your name? We can’t call you Mrs. Dew’s niece all the time." Montagu arose from the floor and shook hands in solemn silence after the manner of boys. "My name’s Jane-Anne, please, sir," said the little girl. "My name’s Edmund, please, miss," that youth remarked, grinning broadly. Jane-Anne looked surprised. She saw nothing unusual in her mode of address. For a minute the three stood and stared at each other. "Would you like," Edmund asked in tones of honeyed politeness, "to see me bowl to him? I was just going to when you came." "Please, sir," said Jane-Anne with commendable alacrity, "I should like it very much." "Perhaps," Montagu suggested, though not over hopefully, "you’d like to field." "Field," repeated Jane-Anne; "what’s that?" "Run after the ball when he hits it, and throw it back to me," Edmund explained. "Oh, I could do that—do let me—it would be lovelly." "Oh, you shall field as much as you like," Edmund promised graciously, and they all went into the garden. Jane-Anne took off her hat and cape and hung them on the roller. It was then to be seen that her little nose was very straight and almost in a line with her forehead; no "dint," as Edmund called it, between the eyes. And her hair, parted in the centre from her brow to the nape of her neck, was black, immensely long and thick, and tightly plaited in two big pig-tails, each tied with a crumpled bit of brown ribbon. Jane-Anne could run very fast and was quite a fair catch, but she could not throw, as Montagu put it, "a hang" except in directions wholly undesirable. She very nearly flung one ball through Mr. Wycherly’s study window in her endeavours to send it to Edmund bowling at the other end of the lawn. So it was settled that she must roll the ball along the grass, which she did with fair precision. The grass was wet and spongy after heavy rain that morning. Jane-Anne’s boots were heavy and clumsy, and when she slid, as she often did, she peeled the grass right off. "I say," Montagu exclaimed, "you’re making a frightful mess of the grass. I think you’d better stop fielding." "I’ll take them off," Jane-Anne exclaimed eagerly. "I can run much faster in my stockings." This she did, regardless of the damp and unhindered by either of the boys, who thought it was very "sporting" of her. "This afternoon," said Montagu, while she was unlacing them, "we had a little girl who insisted on playing at being a princess, and when you came I was afraid you’d want to play something of that sort too; perhaps the beggar maid, for a change." "I shouldn’t ever want to _play_ that," she said very low, and to his dismay he noticed that her mouth drooped at the corners and her eyes were full of tears. She stooped her head over the boot she was unlacing, but Montagu had seen her face.