'LET'S pretend,' suggested Harold, 'that we're Cavaliers and Roundheads; and _you_ be a Roundhead!' 'O bother,' I replied drowsily, 'we pretended that yesterday; and it's not my turn to be a Roundhead, anyhow.' The fact is, I was lazy, and the call to arms fell on indifferent ears. We three younger ones were stretched at length in the orchard. The sun was hot, the season merry June, and never (I thought) had there been such wealth and riot of buttercups throughout the lush grass. Green-and-gold was the dominant key that day. Instead of active 'pretence' with its shouts and its perspiration, how much better--I held--to lie at ease and pretend to one's self, in green and golden fancies, slipping the husk and passing, a careless lounger, through a sleepy imaginary world all gold and green! But the persistent Harold was not to be fobbed off. 'Well then,' he began afresh, 'let's pretend we're Knights of the Round Table; and (with a rush) _I'll_ be Lancelot!' 'I won't play unless I'm Lancelot,' I said. I didn't mean it really, but the game of Knights always began with this particular contest. 'O _please_,' implored Harold. 'You know when Edward's here I never get a chance of being Lancelot. I haven't been Lancelot for weeks!' Then I yielded gracefully. 'All right,' I said. 'I'll be Tristram.' 'O, but you can't,' cried Harold again. 'Charlotte has always been Tristram. She won't play unless she's allowed to be Tristram! Be somebody else this time.' Charlotte said nothing, but breathed hard, looking straight before her. The peerless hunter and harper was her special hero of romance, and rather than see the part in less appreciative hands, she would have gone back in tears to the stuffy schoolroom. 'I don't care,' I said: 'I'll be anything. I'll be Sir Kay. Come on!'