"Dear Maudie has such quaint little sayings," said her mother. "I don't know how she can remember them all."
"Well, which is it to be?" demanded Maud, dramatically striking an attitude. "Is it peace or war?"
"Oh, peace, I suppose," replied Marjory, laughing; and then as an afterthought--"for the present."
This girl with her airs and graces and her comical ways was something quite new to Marjory, and she stood contemplating this wonderful and puzzling creature, when the creature suddenly seized her round the waist, waltzing out of the room with her, and calling Blanche to come too.
"Darling Maud has such wonderfully high spirits," murmured Mrs. Hilary to the empty air. She had probably forgotten that there was no one left in the room.
"And hopes, perfumed and bright, So lately shining wet with dew and tears, Trembling in the morning light-- I saw them change to dark and anxious fears Before the night!"--ADELAIDE PROCTER.
Blanche had told her cousin something of Marjory's history, and Maud was prepared to be much interested in her, for her life had been so unusual, so different from that of ordinary girls.
"I've never met anybody just like you," she said to Marjory as they walked across the park, "and I want to know all about you and your belongings, and above all, I ache to find out what is in that forbidden room, and why you mustn't go into it."
This was a sore subject with Marjory. She felt more than half ashamed of her uncle's eccentricity in this matter.
"I don't think there is anything in it except my mother's things," she replied. "Everything that belonged to her is there, except this chain with the locket and coin on it that she said she wanted me to have and to wear always. Lisbeth says I used to wear it when I was a tiny baby." And she pulled the chain outside her coat to show it to Maud.
"Oh, how sweet!" cried Maud as she opened the locket and saw the face of Marjory's mother. "How I wish you'd got her now!" impulsively squeezing Marjory's arm. "And what's this?" looking at the other trinket which hung on the chain.
"It's the half of a coin with a hole bored through it."
"So it is. And look, there's one-half of the date on it--87. Let's see. This is 1902. That's" (and she counted rapidly on her fingers, contrary to all approved systems of mental arithmetic) "fifteen years ago--before you were born, and of course the very year I was born. It was the Queen's Jubilee year, and that's why I was called Victoria--Maud Victoria my name is. Think it's pretty?" she asked, with her head coquettishly on one side.