NOTE.--The approach is from the north, therefore the usual position of the compass is inverted. The scale is a scale of feet. PLAN OF THE HALL HOLWICK, YORKSHIRE] THE CHILD OF THE MOAT A STORY FOR GIRLS CHAPTER I HATE Sweet children of demurest air, Pale blossoms woven through your hair, On shifting rainbows gathering, Endowed with love’s engaging mien And crowding lips that toward me lean, Through little hands, outstretched between In sympathetic wondering. Children, ye cannot understand, Floating in that enchanted land, The pathos of our helplessness; And yet your winsome faces bear, Though ye yourselves are unaware, The antidote of our despair,-- Exorcists of our hopelessness. _Children of Fancy: The Guelder Roses._ The great ship _Lusitania_ was nearing Queenstown on May 7th, 1915, when a terrible explosion occurred, and in fifteen minutes she had sunk. Among some 1700 adults and 500 children were a lecturer on art and archaeology and a little girl, with whom he had made friends on board. About 700 people escaped and these two were both eventually picked up out of the water. When they reached the land there was no one left to look after her; so he first took her across to her relatives in England and then she went to live in the home of the archaeologist, in Scotland, who had three little boys of his own but no little girls. Archaeologists do not know anything about girls’ story books, and he may have been misinformed when he was told that girls’ books were too tame and that most girls preferred to read the more exciting books of their brothers. However, this made him decide himself to write a story for the little girl, which should be full of adventures. It was frankly a melodramatic story, a story of love and hate, and he chose the period of the Reformation, so as to have two parties bitterly opposed to each other; but, except for dramatic purposes, religious problems were as far as possible left out. One difficulty was as to whether the characters should speak in old English; but, as that might have made it hard to read, only a few old words and phrases were introduced here and there, just, as it were, to give a flavour. Afterwards the author was asked to publish the story “for precocious girls of thirteen,” as it was delightfully phrased; that is to say, for girls of thirteen and upwards and perhaps for grown up people, but hardly for superior young ladies of about seventeen; and this is the story: * * * * *