She invariably spoke of Hal as _he_; she never gave him a name. Teddy felt that it would not be honorable to question her, but he kept his eyes wide for any clew that would solve the mystery. In Hal’s absence he would become bitter towards him, because he had dared to hurt Desire. But when he came to the farm with his arms full of presents, so hungry to win her love, he felt that somewhere there had been a big mistake and that whoever had been cruel, Hal was not the person. It was Hal who, having heard them speak of knights and sorcerers, brought them _The Idylls of the King_. Many a golden day they spent reading aloud, while the sunlight dripped from leaves overhead, dappling the pages. “I like Sir Launcelot best.” -“But you mustn’t,” said Teddy; “King Arthur was the good one. If Sir Launcelot hadn’t done wrong, everything would have been happy always.” “Yes, but if everything had been happy always, there wouldn’t have been any story,” she objected. She made bars of her fingers before her mischievous eyes; it was a warning that she was going to be impish. “I expect, when I grow up, I shall be like that story; very interesting and very bad.” Teddy’s shocked appearance surpassed her expectations. Gapping her hands, she rose into a kneeling position and mocked him. “Teddy doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like my loving Sir Launcelot best. And I know why. It’s because he’s a King Arthur himself.” All that day she irritated him by calling him King Arthur. They had quarreled hopelessly by supper-time. She went to bed without saying “Good-night,” and he wandered out into the dusky silence. He felt angry with her. Why had he ever liked her? So girls could be spite-full The worst of it was that it was true what she had said. He _was_ a proper person. He would always be a proper person; and proper persons weren’t exciting. He felt like doing something desperate just to prove that he could be bad. Then his superiority in years came to his consolation. Why should he worry himself about a little girl who was younger than himself? When next Hal came to the farm, he would tell him that he was leaving. It was in his bedroom, where the moonlight fell softly, that memories of her sweetness tiptoed back. He remembered the provocative tenderness of her laughter, the velvet softness of her tiny hands, and the way she had wreathed him with flowers, pretending that he was her knight. Life would never be the same without her. Romance walked into his day only when she had passed down the stairs. Not having had a sister, he supposed that these were the emotions of all brothers. She had conquered him at last: though he was in the right, he would ask her forgiveness to-morrow. She had been trying to make him do that from the first morning when he had failed to call her “Princess”--trying to make him bow to her prerogative of forgiving for having done wrong herself. He fell asleep smiling, but he was not happy.