She and Giles were content to spend hours over her instructions in chess on that pleasant balcony in the shade of the house. Though really only a year older than Dennet Headley, she looked much more, and was so in all her ways. It never occurred to her to run childishly wild with delight in the garden and orchard as did Dennet, who, with little five- years-old Will Streatfield for her guide and playfellow, rushed about hither and thither, making acquaintance with hens and chickens, geese and goslings, seeing cows and goats milked, watching butter churned, bringing all manner of animal and vegetable curiosities to Stephen to be named and explained, and enjoying his delight in them, a delight which after the first few days became more and more vigorous. By and by there was punting and fishing on the river, strawberry gathering in the park, explorations of the forest, expeditions of all sorts and kinds, Jasper being soon likewise well enough to share in them. The boys and girls were in a kind of fairy land under Perronel's kind wing, the wandering habits of whose girlhood made the freedom of the country far more congenial to her than it would have been to any regular Londoner. Stephen was the great oracle, of course, as to the deer respectfully peeped at in the park, or the squirrels, the hares and rabbits, in the forest, and the inhabitants of the stream above or below. It was he who secured and tamed the memorials of their visit--two starlings for Dennet and Aldonza. The birds were to be taught to speak, and to do wonders of all kinds, but Aldonza's bird was found one morning dead, and Giles consoled her by the promise of something much bigger, and that would talk much better. Two days after he brought her a young jackdaw. Aldonza clasped her hands and admired its glossy back and queer blue eye, and was in transports when it uttered something between "Jack" and "good lack." But Dennet looked in scorn at it, and said, "That's a bird tamed already. He didn't catch it. He only bought it! I would have none such! An ugsome great thieving bird!" "Nay now, Mistress Dennet," argued Perronel. "Thou hast thy bird, and Alice has lost hers. It is not meet to grudge it to her." "I! Grudge it to her!" said Dennet, with a toss of the head. "I grudge her nought from Giles Headley, so long as I have my Goldspot that Stephen climbed the wall for, his very self." And Dennet turned majestically away with her bird--Goldspot only in the future--perched on her finger; while Perronel shook her head bodingly. But they were all children still, and Aldonza was of a nature that was slow to take offence, while it was quite true that Dennet had been free from jealousy of the jackdaw, and only triumphant in Stephen's prowess and her own starling.