CHAPTER III.
"Nous aurons aussi la fete dans notre rue."-- RUSSIAN PROVERB.
Next day, when our drill in the long corridor was over, Lady Elizabeth told Joseph to bring his fortress, guns, and soldiers into the library, and to play at the Thirty Years' War in the bay-window from a large book with pictures of sieges and battles, which she lent him.
To me my godmother turned very kindly and said, "I have invited your little friend Maud to come and stay here for a week.

I hope she will arrive to-day, so you had better prepare your dolls and your shops for company." Maud Mary coming! I danced for joy, and kissed my godmother, and expressed my delight again and again.

I should have liked to talk about it to Joseph, but he had plunged into the Thirty Years' War, and had no attention to give me.
It was a custom in the neighbourhood where my mother lived to call people by double Christian names, John Thomas, William Edward, and so forth; but my godmother never called Maud Mary anything but Maud.
It was possible that my darling friend might arrive by the twelve o'clock train, and the carriage was sent to meet her, whilst I danced up and down the big hall with impatience.

When it came back without her my disappointment knew no bounds.

I felt sure that the Ibbetsons' coachman had been unpunctual, or dear Maud Mary's nurse had been cross, as usual, and had not tried to get her things packed.