Aunt Maggie did not reply immediately. Percival looked at her anxiously. He observed signs of "thinking," and thinking might be fatal to this most engaging proposition. "If you possibly could, Aunt Maggie!" he pleaded.
But it was Mr. Amber's further argument that persuaded her. His words acutely entered the matter with which she was occupied. "You know, Percival must be the only soul in the countryside that hasn't seen the Manor," he urged. "It was the regular custom for any one who liked to come up in the old days. You recollect the Tenant Teas in the summer? Why, it's his right, I declare."
A little colour showed on her cheeks. "Yes, it is his right," she said.
Percival was to enjoy another right before the day was out. The decision to accept Mr. Amber's invitation once made, he had whooped ahead through the Manor gates and flashed up the long drive at play with a game of his own among the flanking trees. A noble turn in the avenue brought him within astonished gaze of the house, and, very flushed in the cheeks, he came racing back to his elders.
"I say, it's a perfectly 'normous house you live in, Mr. Amber."
"Aha!" cries old Mr. Amber, highly pleased. "I knew you would like it, Master Percival!"
"Why, I call it a _castle!_" Percival declares.
They turn the corner and Mr. Amber points with his stick. "Well, you're not quite wrong, either. That part--the East Wing we call that--you see how old that is? Almost a castle once, that. See those funny little marks? Used to be holes there to fire guns through. What do you think of that?"
Percival's face proclaims what he thinks--and his voice, deep with awe, says, "Fire them bang?"
"Aha! Strange little boys, perhaps. I'll tell you all about it, if you'll come and see me sometimes."
Percival announces that he will come every single day, and runs eagerly up the five broad steps that lead to the great oak door, now standing ajar, and halts wonderingly upon the threshold to gaze around the spacious hall and up at the gallery that encircles it.
Aunt Maggie stops so abruptly and gives so strange a catch at her breath that Mr. Amber turns to look at her. Following her eyes, and reading what he fancies in them, "Why, he does make a brave little picture, standing there, doesn't he?" Mr. Amber says.