She gathered a few more blades and tucked them tenderly into the bosom of her frock--they would serve to remind her of the queen, they had sprouted and grown up within sight of the queen's house, perhaps one day the queen had looked at them, as to-day she had looked at Flo. The child sat for half-an-hour unperceived, and therefore undisturbed, drinking in the soft summer air, when suddenly a familiar voice sounded in her ears, and the absent figures danced before her. "I say, Flo, would yer like somethink _real_, not an ony s'pose?" Flo raised her eyes and fixed them earnestly on Dick. "No, Dick," she replied slowly, "there beant but one queen, and I've seen the queen, and she's beautiful and good, and she looked at me, Dick, and I'm not a goin' to take 'er place, so I'll be the hearl's wife please, Dick dear." The two boys laughed louder than ever, and then Jenks, coming forward and bowing obsequiously, said in a mock serious tone-- "Will my Lady Countess, the hearl's wife, conderscend to a 'elpin' o' taters and beef along o' her 'umble servants, and will she conderscend to rise orf this 'ere grass, as hotherwise the perleece might feel obligated to give 'er in charge, it being contrary to the rules, that even a hearl's wife should make this 'ere grass 'er cushion." Considerably frightened, as Jenks intended she should be, Flo tumbled to her feet, and the three children walked away. Dick nudged his sister and looked intensely mysterious, his bright eyes were dancing, his shock of rough hair was pushed like a hay-stack above his forehead, his dirty freckled face was flushed. Jenks preceded the brother and sister by a few steps, getting over the ground in a light and leisurely manner, most refreshing to the eyes of Dick. "Ain't 'ee a mate worth 'avin'?" he whispered to Flo. "But wot about the meat and taters?" asked Flo, who by this time was very hungry; "ain't it nothink but another `s'pose' arter all?" "Wait and you'll see," replied Dick with a broad grin. "Here we 'ere," said Jenks, drawing up at the door of an eating-house, not quite so high in the social scale as Verrey's, but a real and substantial eating-house nevertheless. "Now, my Lady Countess, the hearl's wife, which shall it be? Smokin' 'ot roast beef and taters, or roast goose full hup to chokin' o' sage and onions? There, Flo," he added, suddenly changing his tone, and speaking and looking like a different Jenks, "you 'as but to say one or t'other, so speak the word, little matey."