They were indeed two very wonderful months. In the morning Michael would sit beside his mother at breakfast, and for a great treat he would be given the segment she so cleverly cut off from the tip of her egg. And for another treat, he would be allowed to turn the finished egg upside down and present it to her as a second untouched, for which she would be very grateful and by whose sudden collapse before the tapping of the spoon, she would be just as tremendously surprized. After the egg would always come two delicious triangles of toast, each balancing a single strawberry from the pot of strawberry jam. After breakfast, Michael would walk round the heap of clinkers in the middle of the parched seaside garden while his mother read her letters, and very soon they would set out together to the beach, where in time they would meet Nurse and Stella with the perambulator and the camp-stools and the bag of greengages or William-pears. Sand castles were made and boats were sailed or rather were floated upside down in pools, and just as the morning was getting too good to last, they would have to go home to dinner, joining on to the procession of people returning up the cliffs. Michael would be armed with a spade, a boat with very wet sails, and sometimes with a pail full of sea-water and diminutive fish that died one by one in the course of the afternoon heat. After dinner Mrs. Fane would lie down for a while, and Michael would lie down for a great treat beside her and keep breathless and still, watching the shadows of light made by the bellying of the blind in the breeze. Bluebottles would drone, and once to his bodeful apprehension a large spider migrated to another corner of the ceiling. But he managed to restrain himself from waking his mother.
One afternoon Michael was astonished to see on the round table by the bed the large photograph in a silver frame of a man in knee-breeches with a sword—a prince evidently by his splendid dress and handsome face. He speculated during his mother's sleep upon this portrait, and the moment Annie had left the cup of tea which she brought in to wake his mother Michael asked who the man was.
"A friend of mine," said Mrs. Fane.
"A prince?"
"No, not a prince."
"He looks like a prince," said Michael sceptically.
"Does he, darling?"
"I think he does look like a prince. Is he good?"
"Very good."
"What's wrote on it?" Michael asked. "Oh, mother, when will I read writing?"
"When you're older."
"I wish I was older now. I want to read writing. What's wrote on it?"
"Always," his mother told him.
"Always?"
"Yes."
"Always what? Always good?"
"No, just plain 'always,'" said Mrs. Fane.
"What a funny writing. Who wrote it?"
"The man in the picture."
"Why?"
"To please mother."
"Shall I write 'always' when I can write?" he asked.
"Of course, darling."
"But what is that man for?"
"He's an old friend of mother's."
"I like him," said Michael confidently.
"Do you, darling?" said his mother, and then suddenly she kissed him.
That evening when Michael's prayers were concluded and he was lying very still in his bed, he waited for his mother's tale.
"Once upon a time," she began, "there was a very large and enormous forest——"
"No, don't tell about a forest," Michael interrupted. "Tell about that man in the picture."
Mrs. Fane was staring out of the window, and after a moment's hesitation she turned round.
"Because there are fairy-tales without a prince," said Michael apologetically.
"Well, once upon a time," said his mother, "there lived in an old old country house three sisters whose mother had died when they were quite small."
"Why did she die?"
"She was ill."
Michael sighed sympathetically.
"These three sisters," his mother went on, "lived with their father, an old clergyman."
"Was he kind to them?"
"According to his own ideas he was very kind. But the youngest sister always wanted to have her own way and one day when she was feeling very cross because her father had told her she was to go and stay with an aunt, who should come riding along a lane but——"
"That man," interrupted Michael, greatly excited.
"A rider on horseback. And he said good morning, and she said good morning, though she had no business to."
"Why hadn't she?"
"Because it isn't right for girls to speak to riders on horseback without being introduced. But the rider was very handsome and brave and after that they met very often, and then one day he said, 'Won't you ride away with me?' and she rode away with him and never saw her father or her sisters or the old house any more."
Mrs. Fane had turned her face to the sunset again.
"Is that all?" Michael asked.
"That's all."
"Was they happy ever afterwards?"
"Very happy—too happy."
"Are they happy now?"
"Very happy—too happy."
"Did they live in a castle?"
"Sometimes, and sometimes they lived in a beautiful ship and went sailing away to the most beautiful cities in the world."
"Can't Michael go with you?" he asked.
"Darling boy, it's a fairy-tale."
"Is it?" he said doubtfully.
The two wonderful months were over. One long day of packing up was the end of them, and when they got back to London there was more packing up, after a few days of which Mrs. Fane took Michael in her arms and kissed him good-bye and told him to be very good. Michael tried not to cry; but the tears were forced out by a huge lump in his throat when he saw a cab at the door, pointing the other way from London. He could not bear the heaped-up luggage and Nurse's promises of sitting up late that evening for a great treat. He did not want to sit up late, and when