THE GOLDEN AGE
night, when the chestnuts popped in the ashes, and the old ghost stories drew the awe-stricken circle close? Old Merlin, perhaps, 'all furred in black sheep-skins, and a russet gown, with a bow and arrows, and bearing wild geese in his hand!' Or stately Ogier the Dane, recalled from Faëry, asking his way to the land that once had need of him! Or even, on some white night, the Snow- Queen herself, with a chime of sleigh-bells and the patter of reindeer's feet, halting of a sudden at the door flung wide, while aloft the Northern Lights went shaking attendant spears among the quiet stars!
This morning, house-bound by the relentless indefatigable snow, I was feeling the reaction. Edward, on the contrary, being violently stage-struck on this his first introduction to the real Drama, was striding up and down the floor, proclaiming 'Here be I, King Gearge the Third,' in a strong Berkshire accent. Harold, accustomed, as the youngest, to lonely antics and to sports that asked no sympathy, was absorbed in 'clubmen': a performance consist-
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