"Mamselle's coming out!" Eliza remarked.
Immediately after breakfast Lord Yalding called with a wagonette
that wore a smart blue cloth coat, and was drawn by two horses
whose coats were brown and shining and fitted them even better
than the blue cloth coat fitted the wagonette, and the whole party
drove in state and splendour to Yalding Towers.
Arrived there, the children clamoured for permission
to explore the castle thoroughly, a thing that had never yet been
possible. Lord Yalding, a little absent in manner, but yet quite
cordial, consented. Mabel showed the others all the secret doors
and unlikely passages and stairs that she had discovered. It was a
glorious morning. Lord Yalding and Mademoiselle went through
the house, it is true, but in a rather half-hearted way. Quite soon
they were tired, and went out through the French windows of the
drawing-room and through the rose garden, to sit on the curved
stone seat in the middle of the maze, where once, at the beginning
of things, Gerald, Kathleen, and Jimmy had found the sleeping
Princess who wore pink silk and diamonds.
The children felt that their going left to the castle a more spacious
freedom, and explored with more than Arctic enthusiasm. It was as
they emerged from the little rickety secret staircase that led from
the powdering-room of the state suite to the gallery of the hall that
they came suddenly face to face with the odd little man who had a
beard like a goat and had taken the wrong turning yesterday.
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