The library-table was strewn with books of old court life, and pictures of kings and queens whose costumes were to be copied in the tableaux.  There was one book which Keith carried around with him until he had spelled out the whole beautiful tale.  It was called “In Kings’ Houses,” and was the story of the little Duke of Gloster who was made a knight in his boyhood.  And when Keith had read it himself, he took it down to the professor’s, and read it all over again to Jonesy.

[Illustration:  “THERE WAS ONE BOOK WHICH KEITH CARRIED AROUND WITH HIM.”]

“Think how grand he must have looked, Jonesy,” cried Keith, “and I am to be dressed exactly like him when I am knighted in the tableau.”  Then he read the description again: 

“’A suit of white velvet embroidered with seed pearls, and literally blazing with jewels,—­even the buttons being great brilliants.  From his shoulder hung a cloak of azure blue velvet, the colour of the order, richly wrought with gold; and around his neck he wore the magnificent collar and jewel of St. George and the Dragon, that was the personal gift of his Majesty, the king.’

“Think how splendid it must have been, Jonesy, when the procession came in to the music of trumpets and bugles and silver flutes and hautboys!  Wouldn’t you like to have seen the heralds marching by, two by two, in cloth of gold, with an escort of the queen’s guard following?  All of England’s best and bravest were there, and they sat in the carven stalls in St. George’s Chapel, with their gorgeous banners drooping over them.  I saw that chapel, Jonesy, when we were in England, and I saw where the knights kept the ‘vigil of arms’ in the holy places, the night before they took their vows.”  He picked up the book and read again:  “’Fasting and praying and lonely watching by night in the great abbey where there are so many dead folk.’

“Oh, don’t you wish you could have lived in those days, Jonesy, and have been a knight?”

It was all Greek to Jonesy.  The terms puzzled him, but he enjoyed Keith’s description of the tournaments.

Several evenings after that, Keith went down to the cottage dressed in the beautiful velvet costume of white and blue, ablaze with rhinestones and glittering jewels.  He had been wrapped in his Aunt Allison’s golf cape, and, as he threw it off, Jonesy’s eyes opened wider and wider with wonder.

“Hi!  You look like a whole jeweller’s window!” he cried, dazzled by the gorgeous sight.  The professor lighted another lamp, and Keith turned slowly around, to be admired on every side like a pleased peacock.

“Of course it’s all only imitation,” he explained, “but it will look just as good as the real thing behind the footlights.  But you ought to see the stage when it’s fixed up to look like the Hall of the Shields, if you want to see glitter.  It’s be-yu-tiful!  Like the one at Camelot, you know.”

But Jonesy did not know, and Keith had to tell about that old castle at Camelot, as Miss Bond had told him.  How that down the side of the long hall ran a treble range of shields,—­