MA’M’SELLE CICELY CAREW 103

For an instant he thought that he was dreaming, and
was glad to think that he would waken by and by from
what had been so sad a dream, and find himself safe in his
own little bed in Stratford town. For the little maid who
stood in the doorway was such a one as his eyes had never
looked upon before.

She was slight and graceful as a lily of the field, and
her skin was white as the purest wax, save where a damask
rose-leaf red glowed through her cheeks. Her black hair
curled about her slender neck. Her gown was crimson,
slashed with gold, cut square across the breast and simply
made, with sleeves just elbow-long, wide-mouthed, and
lined with creamy silk. Her slippers, too, were of crimson
silk, high-heeled, jaunty bits of things; her silken stockings
black. In one hand she held a tall brass candlestick, and
through the fingers of the other the candle-flame made a
ruddy glow like the sun in the heart of a hollyhock. And
in the shadow of her hand her eyes looked out, as Nick
said long afterward, like stars in a summer night.

Thinking it was all a dream, he sat and stared at her.

“Boy!” she said again, quite gently, but with a quaint
little air of reproof, “where are thy manners?”

Nick got up quickly and bowed as best he knew how
If not a dream, this was certainly a princess—and per-
chance—his heart leaped up—perchance she came to set
him free! He wondered who had told her of him? Diccon
Field, perhaps, whose father had been Simon Attwood’s
partner till he died, last Michaelmas. Diccon was in
London now, printing books he had heard. Or maybe it