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Professional Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services
2008 with MDX Wrox Programmer to Programmer 1st
Edition Sivakumar Harinath Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Sivakumar Harinath, Robert Zare, Sethu Meenakshisundaram, Matt
Carroll, Denny Guang-Yeu Lee
ISBN(s): 9780470247983, 0470247983
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 18.61 MB
Year: 2009
Language: english
 Programmer to Programmer™

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 Professional Microsoft® SQL Server®
Analysis Services 2008 with MDX
Introduction .............................................................................................. xxix

Part I: Introduction
Chapter 1: Introduction to Data Warehousing and SQL Server 2008 Analysis
Services ........................................................................................3
Chapter 2: First Look at Analysis Services 2008 ...........................................23
Chapter 3: Introduction to MDX ....................................................................67
Chapter 4: Working with Data Sources and Data Source Views ......................93
Chapter 5: Dimension Design ......................................................................117
Chapter 6: Cube Design ..............................................................................161
Chapter 7: Administering Analysis Services .................................................197
Part II: Advanced Topics
Chapter 8: Advanced Dimension Design ......................................................245
Chapter 9: Advanced Cube Design ..............................................................285
Chapter 10: Advanced Topics in MDX ..........................................................367
Chapter 11: Extending MDX Using External Functions .................................395
Chapter 12: Data Writeback .......................................................................413
Part III: Advanced Administration and
Performance Optimization
Chapter 13: Programmatic and Advanced Administration .............................441
Chapter 14: Designing for Performance .......................................................457
Chapter 15: Analyzing and Optimizing Query Performance ............................517
Part IV: Integration with Microsoft Products
Chapter 16: Data Mining.............................................................................553
Chapter 17: Analyzing Cubes Using Microsoft Office Components ................601
Chapter 18: Using Data Mining with Office 2007 .........................................677

Continues
Chapter 19: Integration Services ................................................................747
Chapter 20: Reporting Services ..................................................................779
Part V: Scenarios
Chapter 21: Designing Real-Time Cubes ......................................................833
Chapter 22: Securing Your Data in Analysis Services ...................................855
Chapter 23: Inventory Scenarios .................................................................897
Chapter 24: Financial Scenarios..................................................................923
Chapter 25: Web Analytics .........................................................................951
Appendix A: MDX Functions ........................................................................991
Index .........................................................................................................993
 Professional
Microsoft® SQL Server®
Analysis Services 2008 with MDX
 Professional
Microsof t® SQL Server®
Analysis Services 2008 with MDX

Sivakumar Harinath
Matt Carroll
Sethu Meenakshisundaram
Robert Zare
Denny Guang-Yeu Lee

Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Professional Microsoft® SQL Server® Analysis
Services 2008 with MDX
Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
10475 Crosspoint Boulevard
Indianapolis, IN 46256
www.wiley.com
Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
ISBN: 978-0-470-24798-3
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by
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Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley &
Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at
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dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates, in the United
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Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not
be available in electronic books.
 I dedicate this book in the grandest possible manner to my dear wife, Shreepriya,
who has been fully supportive and patient with me for all the late nights I worked on this book.
It is also dedicated to my twins, Praveen and Divya, who have seen me work long hours on this book.
I dedicate this book in memory of my father, Harinath Govindarajalu, who passed away in 1999 and
who I am sure would have been proud of this great achievement, and to my mother, Sundar Bai,
and my sister, Geetha Harinath. Finally, I dedicate this book in memory of my uncle, Jayakrishnan Govindarajalu,
who passed away in 2007 and who was very proud of me co-authoring the first edition of this book,
and was eagerly looking forward to seeing this book.
—Siva Harinath
Thanks to my wife, Wendy, for her love and patience. Love and hope to Lawrence,
Loralei, and Joshua.
—Matt Carroll
To my Parents, Uncle & Aunt, Guru(s), and the Lord Almighty for molding
me into who I am today.
—Sethu Meenakshisundaram
To the patience and love from Isabella and Hua-Ping.
—Denny Lee
About the Authors
Sivakumar Harinath was born in Chennai, India. Siva has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the
University of Illinois at Chicago. His thesis title was “Data Management Support for Distributed Data
Mining of Large Datasets over High Speed Wide Area Networks.” Siva has worked for Newgen Software
Technologies (P) Ltd., IBM Toronto Labs, Canada; National Center for Data Mining, University of Illinois
at Chicago; and has been at Microsoft since February of 2002. Siva started as a Software Design Engineer
in Test (SDET) in the Analysis Services Performance Team and currently is a Senior Test Lead in the
Analysis Services team. Siva’s other interests include high-performance computing, distributed systems,
and high-speed networking. Siva is married to Shreepriya and has twins, Praveen and Divya. His
personal interests include travel, games, and sports (in particular carrom, chess, racquet ball, and board
games). You can reach Siva at [email protected].
Matt Carroll is currently a Senior Development Lead on the SQL Server Integration Services team at
Microsoft. Prior to this, he spent 10 years working on the SQL Server Analysis Services team as a
developer and then development lead. He’s presented on Analysis Services at VSLive and compiled and
edited the whitepaper “OLAP Design Best Practices for Analysis Services 2005.”
Sethu Meenakshisundaram has more than 20 years of Enterprise System Software Development
experience. Sethu spent a good portion of his career at Sybase Inc. in architecture, development, and
management building world class OLTP and OLAP Database Systems. Sethu was instrumental in
developing and leading highly complex clustered systems of Adaptive Server Enterprise. Early in the
‘90s, Sethu developed a version of Sybase Adaptive Server running on the Windows platform. Most
recently he was an Architect in the SQL Server BI team driving technology and partner strategy. Prior to
Microsoft, Sethu managed all of Server development as Senior Director at Sybase including building
teams in the U.S., India, and China. He is currently a Vice President in charge of Technology Strategy at
SAP Labs, USA.
Rob Zare is a program manager on the SQL Server development team. He’s worked on the product since
shortly before the first service pack of SQL Server 2000. During that time, he’s focused primarily on
Analysis Services, though for the next major release of SQL Server he’ll be focused on Integration
Services. He is the co-author of Fast Track to MDX and regularly speaks at major technical conferences
around the world.
Denny Lee is a Senior Program Manager based out of Redmond, WA in the SQLCAT Best Practices Team.
He has more than 12 years experience as a developer and consultant implementing software solutions to
complex OLTP and data warehousing problems. His industry experience includes accounting, human
resources, automotive, retail, web analytics, telecommunications, and healthcare. He had helped create
the first OLAP Services reporting application in production at Microsoft and is a co-author of “SQL Server
2000 Data Warehousing with Analysis Services” and “Transforming Healthcare through Information
[Ed. Joan Ash] (2008)”. In addition to contributing to the SQLCAT Blog, SQL Server Best Practices, and
SQLCAT.com, you can also review Denny’s Space (http://denster.spaces.live.com). Denny
specializes in developing solutions for Enterprise Data Warehousing, Analysis Services, and Data Mining;
he also has focuses in the areas of Privacy and Healthcare.
 Credits
Contributors Production Manager
Akshai Mirchandani Tim Tate
Wayne Robertson
Leah Etienne Vice President and Executive Group Publisher
Grant Paisley Richard Swadley

Executive Editor Vice President and Executive Publisher

Robert Elliott Barry Pruett

Development Editor Associate Publisher

Kelly Talbot Jim Minatel

Technical Editor Project Coordinator, Cover

Ron Pihlgren Lynsey Stanford
Prashant Dhingra
Proofreader
Production Editor Nancy Carrasco
Daniel Scribner
Indexer
Copy Editor Ron Strauss
Kim Cofer

Editorial Manager
Mary Beth Wakefield
 Acknowledgments

Wow!!! It has been an amazing 15 months from when we decided to partner in writing this book. The
first edition of this book started when Siva jokingly mentioned to his wife the idea of writing a book on
SQL Server Analysis Services 2005. She took it seriously and motivated him to start working on the idea
in October 2003. Because the first edition was well received, Siva identified co-authors for the new
edition. All the co-authors of this book were part of the SQL Server team when they started writing this
book. As always, there are so many people who deserve mentioning that we are afraid we will miss
someone. If you are among those missed, please accept our humblest apologies. We first need to thank
the managers of each co-author and Kamal Hathi, Product Unit Manager of the Analysis Services team
for permission to moonlight. Siva specifically thanks his manager Lon Fisher for his constant
encouragement and support to help Analysis Services customers. We thank our editors, Bob Elliott and
Kelly Talbot, who supported us right from the beginning but also prodded us along, which was
necessary to make sure the book was published on time.
We would like to thank our technical reviewers, Ron Pihlgren and Prashant Dhingra, who graciously
offered us their assistance and significantly helped in improving the content and samples in the book.
We thank Akshai Mirchandani, Wayne Robertson, Leah Etienne, and Grant Paisley for their
contributions in the book for Chapters 5, 6, 14, 17, and 18. We thank all our colleagues in the Analysis
Services product team (including Developers, Program Managers, and Testers) who helped us in
accomplishing the immense feat of writing the book on a development product. To the Analysis Services
team, special thanks go to Akshai Mirchandani, T. K. Anand, Cristian Petculescu, Bogdan Crivat, Dana
Cristofor, Marius Dumitru, Andrew Garbuzov, Bo Simmons, and Richard Tkachuk from the SQL Server
Customer Advisory team for patiently answering our questions or providing feedback to enhance the
content of the book.
Most importantly, we owe our deepest thanks to our wonderful families. Without their support and
sacrifice, this book would have become one of those many projects that begins and never finishes. Our
families were the ones who truly took the brunt of it and sacrificed shared leisure time, all in support of
our literary pursuit. We especially want to thank them for their patience with us, and the grace it took to
not kill us during some of the longer work binges.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
“And now to supper,” said the dear. “Roast chicken. And
gooseberry pie. And cream.”

To the children, accustomed to the mild

uninterestingness of bread and milk for supper, this
seemed the crowning wonder of the day. And what a
day it had been!

And while they ate the brown chicken, with bread sauce 52
and gravy and stuffing, and the gooseberry pie and
cream, the aunt told them of her day.

“It really is a ship,” she said, “and the best thing it

brings is that we shan’t let lodgings any more.”

“Hurrah!” was the natural response.

“And we shall have more money to spend and be more

comfortable. And you can go to a really nice school. And
where do you think we’re going to live?”

“Not,” said Elfrida, in a whisper,—“not at the castle?”

“Why, how did you guess?”

Elfrida looked at Edred. He hastily swallowed a large

mouthful of chicken to say, “Auntie, I do hope you won’t
mind. We went to Arden to-day. You said we might go
this year.”

Then the whole story came out—yes, quite all, up to the

saying of the spell.

“And did anything happen?” Aunt Edith asked. The

children were thankful to see that she was only
interested, and did not seem vexed at what they had
done.
“Well,” said Elfrida slowly, “we saw a mole——”

Aunt Edith laughed, and Edred said quickly—

“That’s all the story, auntie. And I am Lord Arden, aren’t

I?”

“Yes,” the aunt answered gravely. “You are Lord Arden.”

“Oh, ripping!” cried Edred, with so joyous a face that his 53

aunt put away a little sermon she had got ready in the
train on the duties of the English aristocracy—that
would keep, she thought—and turned to say, “No, dear,”
to Elfrida’s eager question, “Then I’m Lady Arden, aren’t
I?”

“If he’s lord I ought to be lady,” Elfrida said. “It’s not

fair.”

“Never mind, old girl,” said Edred kindly. “I’ll call you
Lady Arden whenever you like.”

“How would you like,” asked the aunt, “to go over and
live at the castle now?”

“To-night?”

“No, no,” she laughed; “next week. You see, I must try
to let this house, and I shall be very busy. Mrs.
Honeysett, the old lady who used to keep house for
your great-uncle, wrote to the lawyers and asked if we
would employ her. I remember her when I was a little
girl; she is a dear, and knows heaps of old songs. How
would you like to be there with her while I finish up
here and get rid of the lodgers? Oh, there’s that bell
again! I don’t think we’ll have any bells at the castle,
shall we?”
So that was how it was arranged. The aunt stayed at
the bow-windowed house to arrange the new furniture
—for the house was to be let furnished—and to pack up
the beautiful old things that were real Arden things, and
the children went in the carrier’s cart, with their clothes
and their toys in two black boxes, and in their hearts a
world of joyous anticipations.

Mrs. Honeysett received them with a pretty, old- 54

fashioned curtsey, which melted into an embrace.

“You’re welcome to your home, my lord,” she said, with

an arm round each child, “and you too, miss, my dear.
Any one can see you’re Ardens, both two of you. There
was always a boy and a girl—a boy and a girl.” She had
a sweet, patient face, with large, pale blue eyes that
twinkled when she smiled, and she almost always
smiled when she looked at the children.

Oh, but it was fine, to unpack one’s own box—to lay out
one’s clothes in long, cedar-wood drawers, fronted with
curved polished mahogany; to draw back the neat
muslin blinds from lattice-paned windows that had
always been Arden windows; to look out, as so many
Ardens must have done, over land that, as far as one
could see, had belonged to one’s family in old days.
That it no longer belonged hardly mattered at all to the
romance of hearts only ten and twelve years old.

Then to go down one’s own shallow, polished stairs

(where portraits of old Ardens hung on the wall), and to
find the cloth laid for dinner in one’s own wainscoted
parlour, laid for two. I think it was nice of Edred to say,
the moment Mrs. Honeysett had helped them to toad-
in-the-hole and left them to eat it—

“May I pass you some potatoes, Lady Arden?”

Elfrida giggled happily.

55

“THE CHILDREN WENT IN THE CARRIER’S CART.”

The parlour was furnished with the kind of furniture 56

they knew and loved. It had a long, low window that
showed the long, narrow garden outside. The walls
were panelled with wood, browny-grey under its polish.

“Oh,” said Elfrida, “there must be secret panels here.”

And though Edred said, “Secret fiddlesticks!” he in his
heart felt that she was right.

After dinner, “May we explore?” Elfrida asked, and Mrs.

Honeysett, most charming of women, answered heartily
—

“Why not? It’s all his own, bless his dear heart.”

So they explored.

The house was much bigger than they had found it on

that wonderful first day when they had acted the part of
burglars. There was a door covered with faded green
baize. Mrs. Honeysett pointed it out to them with,
“Don’t you think this is all: there’s the other house
beyond;” and at the other side of that door there was,
indeed, the other house.

The house they had already seen was neat, orderly,

“bees-whacked,” as Mrs. Honeysett said, till every bit of
furniture shone like a mirror or a fond hope. But beyond
the baize door there were shadows, there was dust,
windows draped in cobwebs, before which hung
curtains tattered and faded, drooping from their poles
like the old banners that, slowly rotting in great
cathedrals, sway in the quiet air where no wind is—
stirred, perhaps, by the breath of Fame’s invisible
trumpet to the air of old splendours and glories.

The carpets lay in rags on the floors; on the furniture 57

the dust lay thick, and on the boards of corridor and
staircase; on the four-post beds in the bedchambers the
hangings hung dusty and rusty—the quilts showed the
holes eaten by moths and mice. In one room a cradle of
carved oak still had a coverlet of tattered silk dragging
from it. From the great kitchen-hearth, where no fire
had been this very long time, yet where still the ashes
of the last fire lay grey and white, a chill air came. The
place smelt damp and felt——

“Do you think it’s haunted?” Elfrida asked.

“Rot!” was her brother’s brief reply, and they went on.

They found long, narrow corridors hung crookedly with

old, black-framed prints, which drooped cobwebs, like
grey-draped crape. They found rooms with floors of
grey, uneven oak, and fireplaces in whose grates lay old
soot and the broken nests of starlings hatched very long
ago.

Edred’s handkerchief—always a rag-of-all-work—rubbed

a space in one of the windows, and they looked out
over the swelling downs. This part of the house was not
built within the castle, that was plain.

When they had opened every door and looked at every

roomful of decayed splendour they went out and round.
Then they saw that this was a wing built right out of the
castle—a wing with squarish windows, with carved drip-
stones. All the windows were yellow as parchment, with
the inner veil laid on them by Time and the spider. The
ivy grew thick round the windows, almost hiding some
of them altogether.

“Oh!” cried Elfrida, throwing herself down on the turf, 58

“it’s too good to be true. I can’t believe it.”

“What I can’t believe,” said Edred, doing likewise, “is

that precious mole.”

“But we saw it,” said Elfrida; “you can’t help believing

things when you’ve seen them.”
“I can,” said Edred, superior. “You remember the scarlet
toadstools in ‘Hereward.’ Suppose those peppermint
creams were enchanted—to make us dream things.”

“They were good,” said Elfrida. “I say!”

“Well?”

“Have you made up any poetry to call the mole with?”

“Have you?”

“No; I’ve tried, though.”

“I’ve tried. And I’ve done it.”

“Oh, Edred, you are clever. Do say it.”

“If I do, do you think the mole will come?”

“Of course it will.”

“Well,” said Edred slowly, “of course I want to find the

treasure and all that. But I don’t believe in it. It isn’t
likely—that’s what I think. Now is it likely?”

“Unlikelier things happened in ‘The Amulet,’” said

Elfrida.

“Ah,” said Edred, “that’s a story.”

“The mole said we were in a story. I say, Edred, do say 59

your poetry.”

Edred slowly said it—

“‘Mole, mole,
Come out of your hole;
 I know you’re blind,
But I don’t mind.’”

Elfrida looked eagerly round her. There was the short

turf; the castle walls, ivied and grey, rose high above
her; pigeons circled overhead, and in the arches of the
windows and on the roof of the house they perched,
preening their bright feathers or telling each other,
“Coo, coo; cooroo, cooroo,” whatever that may mean.
But there was no mole—not a hint or a dream or idea of
a mole.

“Edred,” said his sister.

“Well?”

“Did you really make that up? Don’t be cross, but I do

think I’ve heard something like it before.”

“I—I adopted it,” said Edred.

“?” said Elfrida.

“Haven’t you seen it in books, ‘Adopted from the

French’? I altered it.”

“I don’t believe that’ll do. How much did you alter?

What’s the real poetry like?”

“‘The mole, the mole,

He lives in a hole.
The mole is blind;
I don’t mind,’”

said Edred sulkily. “Auntie told me it the day you went to 60

her with Mrs. Harrison.”
“I’m sure you ought to make it up all yourself. You see,
the mole doesn’t come.”

“There isn’t any mole,” said Edred.

“Let’s both think hard. I’m sure I could make poetry—if

I knew how to begin.”

“If any one’s got to make it, it’s me,” said Edred. “You’re
not Lord Arden.”

“You’re very unkind,” said Elfrida, and Edred knew she

was right.

“I don’t mind trying,” he said, condescendingly; “you

make the poetry and I’ll say it.”

Elfrida buried her head in her hands and thought till her
forehead felt as large as a mangel-wurzel, and her
blood throbbed in it like a church clock ticking.

“Got it yet?” he asked, just as she thought she really

had got it.

“Don’t!” said the poet, in agony.

Then there was silence, except for the pigeons and the
skylarks, and the mooing of a cow at a distant red-
roofed farm.

“Will this do?” she said at last, lifting her head from her
hands and her elbows from the grass; there were deep
dents and lines on her elbows made by the grass-stalks
she had leaned on so long.

“Spit it out,” said Edred.

Thus encouraged, Elfrida said, very slowly and carefully, 61
“‘Oh, Mouldiwarp’—I think it would rather be called that
than mole, don’t you?—‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, do please
come out and show us how to set about it’—that means
the treasure. I hope it’ll understand.”

“That’s not poetry,” said Edred.

“Yes, it is, if you say it right on—

“‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, do please come out

And show us how to set about
It.’”

“There ought to be some more,” said Edred—rather

impressed, all the same.

“There is,” said Elfrida. “Oh, wait a minute—I shall

remember directly. It—what I mean is, how to find the
treasure and make Edred brave and wise and kind.”

“I’m kind enough if it comes to that,” said Lord Arden.

“Oh, I know you are; but poetry has to rhyme—you

know it has. I expect poets often have to say what they
don’t mean because of that.”

“Well, say it straight through,” said Edred, and Elfrida

said, obediently—

“‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, do please come out

And show us how to set about
It. What I mean is how to find
The treasure, and make Edred brave and wise and
kind.’

I’ll write it down if you’ve got a pencil.”

Edred produced a piece of pink chalk, but he had no
paper, so Elfrida had to stretch out her white petticoat,
put a big stone on the hem, and hold it out tightly with
both hands, while Edred wrote at her dictation.

Then Edred studiously repeated the lines again and 62

again, as he was accustomed to repeat “The Battle of
Ivry,” till at last he was able to stand up and say—

“‘Oh, Mouldiwarp, do please come out

And show me how to set about
It. What I mean is how to find
The treasure, and make me brave and wise——’

If you don’t mind,” he added.

And instantly there was the white mole.

“What do you want now?” it said very crossly indeed.

“And call that poetry?”

“It’s the first I ever made,” said Elfrida, of the hot ears.
“Perhaps it’ll be better next time.”

“We want you to do what the spell says,” said Edred.

“Make you brave and wise? That can’t be done all in a

minute. That’s a long job, that is,” said the mole
viciously.

“Don’t be so cross, dear,” said Elfrida; “and if it’s going

to be so long hadn’t you better begin?”

“I ain’t agoin’ to do no more’n my share,” said the mole,

somewhat softened though, perhaps by the “dear.” “You
tell me what you want, and p’raps I’ll do it.”
“I know what I want,” said Edred, “but I don’t know
whether you can do it.”

“Ha!” laughed the mole contemptuously.

“I got it out of a book Elfrida got on my birthday,” Edred 63

said. “The children in it went into the past. I’d like to go
into the past—and find that treasure!”

“Choose your period,” said the mole wearily.

“Choose——?”

“Your period. What time you’d like to go back to. If you

don’t choose before I’ve counted ten it’s all off. One,
two, three, four——”

It counted ten through a blank silence.

“Nine, ten,” it ended. “Oh, very well, den, you’ll have to

take your luck, that’s all.”

“Bother!” said Edred. “I couldn’t think of anything

except all the dates of all the kings of England all at
once.”

“Lucky to know ’em,” said the mole, and so plainly not

believing that he did know them that Edred found
himself saying under his breath, “William the First,
1066; William the Second, 1087; Henry the First, 1100.”

The mole yawned, which, of course, was very rude of it.

“Don’t be cross, dear,” said Elfrida again; “you help us

your own way.”

“Now you’re talking,” said the mole, which, of course,

Elfrida knew. “Well, I’ll give you a piece of advice. Don’t
you be nasty to each other for a whole day, and then
——”

“You needn’t talk,” said Edred, still under his breath.

“Very well,” said the mole, whose ears were sharper

than his eyes. “I won’t.”

“Oh, don’t!” sighed Elfrida; “what is it we are to do 64

when we’ve been nice to each other for a whole day?”

“Well, when you’ve done that,” said the mole, “look for
the door.”

“What door?” asked Elfrida.

“The door,” said the mole.

“But where is it?” Edred asked.

“In the house it be, of course,” said the mole. “Where

else to gracious should it be?”

And it ran with mouse-like quickness across the grass

and vanished down what looked like a rabbit-hole.

“Now,” said Elfrida triumphantly, “you’ve got to believe

in the mole.”

“Yes,” said Edred, “and you’ve got to be nice to me for a

whole day, or it’s no use my believing.”

“Aren’t I generally nice?” the girl pleaded, and her lips

trembled.

“Yes,” said her brother. “Yes, Lady Arden; and now I’m
going to be nice, too. And where shall we look for the
door?”
This problem occupied them till tea-time. After tea they
decided to paint—with the new paint-box and the
beautiful new brushes. Elfrida wanted to paint Mr.
Millar’s illustrations in “The Amulet,” and Edred wanted
to paint them, too. This could not be, as you will see if
you have the book. Edred contended that they were his
paints. Elfrida reminded him that it was her book. The
heated discussion that followed ended quite suddenly
and breathlessly.

“I wouldn’t be a selfish pig,” said Edred. 65

“No more would I,” said Elfrida. “Oh, Edred, is this being
nice to each other for twenty-four hours?”

“Oh,” said Edred. “Yes—well—all right. Never mind. We’ll

begin again to-morrow.”

But it is much more difficult than you would think to be

really nice to your brother or sister for a whole day.
Three days passed before the two Ardens could succeed
in this seemingly so simple thing. The days were not
dull ones at all. There were beautiful things in them that
I wish I had time to tell you about—such as climbings
and discoveries and books with pictures, and a bureau
with a secret drawer. It had nothing in it but a farthing
and a bit of red tape—secret drawers never have—but it
was a very nice secret drawer for all that.

And at last a day came when each held its temper with
a strong bit. They began by being very polite to each
other, and presently it grew to seem like a game.

“Let’s call each other Lord and Lady Arden all the time,
and pretend that we’re no relation,” said Elfrida. And
really that helped tremendously. It is wonderful how
much more polite you can be to outsiders than you can
to your relations, who are, when all’s said and done, the
people you really love.

As the time went on they grew more and more careful. 66

It was like building a house of cards. As hour after hour
of blameless politeness was added to the score, they
grew almost breathlessly anxious. If, after all this, some
natural annoyance should spoil everything!

“I do hope,” said Edred, towards tea-time, “that you

won’t go and do anything tiresome.”

“Oh, dear, I do hope I shan’t,” said Elfrida.

And this was just like them both.

After tea they decided to read, so as to lessen the

chances of failure. They both wanted the same book
—“Treasure Island” it was—and for a moment the
niceness of both hung in the balance. Then, with one
accord, each said, “No—you have it!” and the matter
ended in each taking a quite different book that it didn’t
particularly want to read.

At bedtime Edred lighted Elfrida’s candle for her, and

she picked up the matches for him when he dropped
them.

“Bless their hearts,” said Mrs. Honeysett, in the passage.

They parted with the heartfelt remark, “We’ve done it

this time.”

Now, of course, in the three days when they had not

succeeded in being nice to each other they had “looked
for the door,” but as the mole had not said where it was,
nor what kind of a door, their search had not been
fruitful. Most of the rooms had several doors, and as
there were a good many rooms the doors numbered
fifty-seven, counting cupboards. And among these there
was none that seemed worthy to rank above all others
as the door. Many of the doors in the old part of the
house looked as though they might be the one, but
since there were many no one could be sure.

“How shall we know?” Edred asked next morning, 67

through his egg and toast.

“I suppose it’s like when people fall in love,” said Elfrida,

through hers. “You see the door and you know at once
that it is the only princess in the world, for you—I mean
door, of course,” she added.

And then, when breakfast was over, they stood up and

looked at each other.

“Now,” they said together.

“We’ll look at every single door. Perhaps there’ll be

magic writing on the door come out in the night, like
mushrooms,” said the girl.

“More likely that mole was kidding us,” said the boy.

“Oh, no,” said the girl; “and we must look at them on

both sides—every one. Oh, I do wonder what’s inside
the door, don’t you?”

“Bluebeard’s wives, I shouldn’t wonder,” said the boy,

“with their heads——”

“If you don’t stop,” said the girl, putting her fingers in
her ears, “I won’t look for the door at all. No, I don’t
mean to be aggravating; but please don’t. You know I
hate it.”

“Come on,” said Edred, “and don’t be a duffer, old

chap.”

The proudest moments of Elfrida’s life were when her

brother called her “old chap.”

So they went and looked at all the fifty-seven doors, 68

one after the other, on the inside and on the outside;
some were painted and some were grained, some were
carved and some were plain, some had panels and
others had none, but they were all of them doors—just
doors, and nothing more. Each was just a door, and
none of them had any claim at all to be spoken of as
THE door. And when they had looked at all the fifty-
seven on the inside and on the outside, there was
nothing for it but to look again. So they looked again,
very carefully, to see if there were any magic writing
that they hadn’t happened to notice. And there wasn’t.
So then they began to tap the walls to try and discover
a door with a secret spring. And that was no good
either.

“There isn’t any old door,” said Edred. “I told you that
mole was pulling our leg.”

“I’m sure there is,” said Elfrida, sniffing a little from

prolonged anxiety. “Look here—let’s play it like the
willing game. I’ll be blindfolded, and you hold my hand
and will me to find the door.”

“I don’t believe in the willing game,” said Edred

disagreeably.
“No more do I,” said Elfrida; “but we must do
something, you know. It’s no good sitting down and
saying there isn’t any door.”

“There isn’t, all the same,” said Edred. “Well, come on.”

So Elfrida was blindfolded with her best silk scarf—the 69

blue one with the hem-stitched ends—and Edred took
her hands. And at once—this happened in the library,
where they had found the spell—Elfrida began to walk
in a steady and purposeful way. She crossed the hall
and went through the green baize door into the other
house; went along its corridor and up its dusty stairs—
up, and up, and up——

“We’ve looked everywhere here,” said Edred, but Elfrida

did not stop for that.

“I know I’m going straight to it,” she said. “Oh! do try to

believe a little, or we shall never find anything,” and
went on along the corridor, where the spiders had
draped the picture-frames with their grey crape
curtains. There were many doors in this corridor, and
Elfrida stopped suddenly at one of them—a door just
like the others.

“This,” she said, putting her hand out till it rested on the
panel, all spread out like a pink starfish,—“this is the
door.”

She felt for the handle, turned it, and went in, still
pulling at Edred’s hand and with the blue scarf still on
her eyes. Edred followed.

“I say!” he said, and then she pulled off the scarf.

The door closed itself very softly behind them.

They were in a long attic room close under the roof—a 70
room that they had certainly, in all their explorings,
never found before. There were no windows—the roof
sloped down at the sides almost to the floor. There was
no ceiling—old worm-eaten roof-beams showed the tiles
between—and old tie-beams crossed it so that as you
stared up it looked like a great ladder with the rungs
very far apart. Here and there through the chinks of the
tiles a golden dusty light filtered in, and outside was the
“tick, tick” of moving pigeon feet, the rustling of pigeon
feathers, the “cooroocoo” of pigeon voices. The long
room was almost bare; only along each side, close
under the roof, was a row of chests, and no two chests
were alike.

“Oh!” said Edred. “I’m kind and wise now. I feel it inside
me. So now we’ve got the treasure. We’ll rebuild the
castle.”

He got to the nearest chest and pushed at the lid, but

Elfrida had to push too before he could get the heavy
thing up. And when it was up, alas! there was no
treasure in the chest—only folded clothes.

So then they tried the next chest.

And in all the chests there was no treasure at all—only

clothes. Clothes, and more clothes again.

“Well, never mind,” said Elfrida, trying to speak

comfortably. “They’ll be splendid for dressing up in.”

“That’s all very well,” said Edred, “but I want the

treasure.”

“Perhaps,” said Elfrida, with some want of tact,

—“perhaps you’re not ‘good and wise’ yet. Not quite, I
mean,” she hastened to add. “Let’s take the things out
and look at them. Perhaps the treasure’s in the
pockets.”

But it wasn’t—not a bit of it; not even a threepenny-bit.

The clothes in the first chest were full riding cloaks and 71
long boots, short-waisted dresses and embroidered
scarves, tight breeches and coats with bright buttons.
There were very interesting waistcoats and odd-shaped
hats. One, a little green one, looked as though it would
fit Edred. He tried it on. And at the same minute Elfrida
lifted out a little straw bonnet trimmed with blue
ribbons. “Here’s one for me,” she said, and put it on.

And then it seemed as though the cooing and rustling of

the pigeons came right through the roof and crowded
round them in a sort of dazzlement and cloud of pigeon
noises. The pigeon noises came closer and closer, and
garments were drawn out of the chest and put on the
children. They did not know how it was done, any more
than you do—but it seemed, somehow, that the pigeon
noises were like hands that helped, and presently there
the two children stood in clothing such as they had
never worn. Elfrida had a short-waisted dress of green-
sprigged cotton, with a long and skimpy skirt. Her
square-toed brown shoes were gone, and her feet wore
flimsy sandals. Her arms were bare, and a muslin
handkerchief was folded across her chest. Edred wore
very white trousers that came right up under his arms, a
blue coat with brass buttons, and a sort of frilly tucker
round his neck.

“I say!” they both said, when the pigeon noises had

taken themselves away, and they were face to face in
the long, empty room.
“That was funny,” Edred added; “let’s go down and
show Mrs. Honeysett.”

But when they got out of the door they saw that Mrs. 72
Honeysett, or some one else, must have been very busy
while they were on the other side of it, for the floor of
the gallery was neatly swept and polished; a strip of
carpet, worn, but clean, ran along it, and prints hung
straight and square on the cleanly, whitewashed walls,
and there was not a cobweb to be seen anywhere. The
children opened the gallery doors as they went along,
and every room was neat and clean—no dust, no
tattered curtains, only perfect neatness and a sort of
rather bare comfort showed in all the rooms. Mrs.
Honeysett was in none of them. There were no
workmen about, yet the baize door was gone, and in its
stead was a door of old wood, very shaky and crooked.

The children ran down the passage to the parlour and

burst open the door, looking for Mrs. Honeysett.

There sat a very upright old lady and a very upright old
gentleman, and their clothes were not the clothes
people wear nowadays. They were like the clothes the
children themselves had on. The old lady was hemming
a fine white frill; the old gentleman was reading what
looked like a page from some newspaper.

“Hoity-toity,” said the old lady very severely; “we forget

our manners, I think. Make your curtsey, miss.”

Elfrida made one as well as she could.

“To teach you respect for your elders,” said the old
gentleman, “you had best get by heart one of Dr.
Watts’s Divine and Moral Songs. I leave you to see to it,
my lady.”
 73

“‘HOITY-TOITY,’ SAID THE OLD LADY VERY

SEVERELY; ‘WE FORGET OUR MANNERS, I
THINK.’”

He laid down the sheet and went out, very straight and 74
dignified, and without quite knowing how it happened
the children found themselves sitting on two little stools
in a room that was, and was not, the parlour in which
they had had that hopeful eggy breakfast, each holding
a marbled side of Dr. Watts’s Hymns.

“You will commit to memory the whole of the one

commencing—
 “‘Happy the child whose youngest years
Receive instruction well,’

And you will be deprived of pudding with your dinners,”

remarked the old lady.

“I say!” murmured Edred.

“Oh, hush!” said Elfrida, as the old lady carried her

cambric frills to the window-seat.

“But I won’t stand it,” whispered Edred. “I’ll tell Aunt

Edith—and who’s she anyhow?” He glowered at the old
lady across the speckless carpet.

“Oh, don’t you understand?” Elfrida whispered back.

“We’ve got turned into somebody else, and she’s our
grandmamma.”

I don’t know how it was that Elfrida saw this and Edred
didn’t. Perhaps because she was a girl, perhaps because
she was two years older than he. They looked
hopelessly at the bright sunlight outside, and then at
the dull, small print of the marble-backed book.

“Edred,” said the old lady, “hand me the paper.” She 75

pointed at the sheet on the brightly polished table. He
got up and carried it across to her, and as he did so he
glanced at it and saw:—

THE TIMES.
June 16, 1807.

And then he knew, as well as Elfrida did, exactly where

he was, and when.

76
 CHAPTER III
IN BONEY’S TIMES

Edred crept back to his stool, and took his corner of the
marble-backed book of Dr. Watts with fingers that
trembled. If you are inclined to despise him, consider
that it was his first real adventure. Even in ordinary life,
and in the time he naturally lived in, nothing particularly
thrilling had ever happened to happen to him until he
became Lord Arden and explored Arden Castle. And now
he and Elfrida had not only discovered a disused house
and a wonderful garret with chests in it, but had been
clothed by mysterious pigeon noises in clothes
belonging to another age. But, you will say, pigeon
noises can’t clothe you in anything, whatever it belongs
to. Well, that was just what Edred told himself at the
time. And yet it was certain that they did. This sort of
thing it was that made the whole business so
mysterious. Further, he and his sister had managed
somehow to go back a hundred years. He knew this
quite well, though he had no evidence but that one
sheet of newspaper. He felt it, as they say, in his bones.
I don’t know how it was, perhaps the air felt a hundred
years younger. Shepherds and country people can tell
the hour of night by the feel of the air. So perhaps very
sensitive people can tell the century by much the same
means. These, of course, would be the people to whom
adventures in times past or present would be likely to
happen. We must always consider what is likely,
especially when we are reading stories about unusual
things.

“I say,” Edred whispered presently, “we’ve got back to 77

1807. That paper says so.”

“I know,” Elfrida whispered. So she must have had more

of that like-shepherds-telling-the-time-of-night feeling
than even her brother.

“I wish I could remember what was happening in

history in 1807,” said Elfrida, “but we never get past
Edward IV. We always have to go back to the Saxons
because of the new girls.”

“But we’re not in history. We’re at Arden,” Edred said.

“We are in history. It’ll be awful not even knowing who’s

king,” said Elfrida; and then the stiff old lady looked up
over very large spectacles with thick silver rims, and
said—

“Silence!”

Presently she laid down the Times and got ink and 78
paper—no envelopes—and began to write. She was
finishing a letter, the large sheet was almost covered on
one side. When she had covered it quite, she turned it
round and began to write across it. She used a white
goose-quill pen. The inkstand was of china, with gold
scrolls and cupids and wreaths of roses painted on it.
On one side was the ink-well, on the other a thing like a
china pepper-pot, and in front a tray for the pens and
sealing-wax to lie in. Both children now knew their
unpleasant poem by heart; so they watched the old
lady, who was grandmother to the children she
supposed them to be. When she had finished writing
she sprinkled some dust out of the pepper-pot over the
letter to dry the ink. There was no blotting-paper to be
seen. Then she folded the sheet, and sealed it with a
silver seal from the pen-tray, and wrote the address on
the outside. Then—

“Have you got your task?” she asked.

“Here it is,” said Elfrida, holding up the book.

“No impudence, miss!” said the grandmother sternly.

“You very well know that I mean, have you got it by
rote yet? And you know, too, that you should say
‘ma’am’ whenever you address me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Elfrida; and this was taken to mean

that she knew her task.

“Then come and say it. No, no; you know better than
that. Feet in the first position, hands behind you, heads
straight, and do not fidget with your feet.”

So then first Elfrida and then Edred recited the

melancholy verses.

“Now,” said the old lady, “you may go and play in the
garden.”

“Mayn’t we take your letter to the post?” Elfrida asked.

“Yes; but you are not to stay in the ‘George’ bar, mind, 79
not even if Mrs. Skinner should invite you. Just hand her
the letter and come out. Shut the door softly, and do
not shuffle with your feet.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Elfrida; and on that they got out.

“They’ll find us out—bound to,” said Edred; “we don’t
know a single thing about anything. I don’t know where
the ‘George’ is, or where to get a stamp, or anything.”

“We must find some one we can trust, and tell them the
truth,” said Elfrida.

“There isn’t any one,” said Edred, “that I’d trust. You
can’t trust the sort of people who stick this sort of baby
flummery round a chap’s neck.” He crumpled his
starched frill with hot, angry fingers.

“Mine prickles all round, too,” Elfrida reminded him,

“and it’s lower, and you get bigger as you go down, so it
prickles more of me than yours does you.”

“Let’s go back to the attic and try and get back into our
own time. I expect we just got in to the wrong door,
don’t you? Let’s go now.”

“Oh, no,” said Elfrida. “How dreadfully dull! Why, we

shall see all sorts of things, and be top in history for the
rest of our lives. Let’s go through with it.”

“Do you remember which door it was—the attic, I

mean?” Edred suddenly asked. “Was it the third on the
left?”

“I don’t know. But we can easily find it when we want 80

it.”

“I’d like to know now,” said Edred obstinately. “You

never know when you are going to want things. Mrs.
Honeysett says you ought always to be able to lay your
hand on anything you want the moment you do want it.
I should like to be quite certain about being able to lay
our hands on our own clothes. Suppose some one goes
and tidies them up. You know what people are.”

“All right,” said Elfrida, “we’ll go and tidy them up

ourselves. It won’t take a minute.”

It would certainly not have taken five—if things had

been as the children expected. They raced up the stairs
to the corridor where the prints were.

“It’s not the first door, I’m certain,” said Edred, so they
opened the second. But it was not that either. So then
they tried all the doors in turn, even opening, at last,
the first one of all. And it was not that, even. It was not
any of them.

“We’ve come to the wrong corridor,” said the boy.

“It’s the only one,” said the girl. And it was. For though
they hunted all over the house, upstairs and downstairs,
and tried every door, the door of the attic they could not
find again. And what is more, when they came to count
up, there were fifty-seven doors without it.

“Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven,” said Elfrida, and ended 81

in a sob,—“the door’s gone! We shall have to stay here
for ever and ever. Oh, I want auntie—I do, I do!”

She sat down abruptly on a small green mat in front of

the last door, which happened to be that of the kitchen.

Edred says he did not cry too. And if what he says is

true, Elfrida’s crying must have been louder than was
usual with her; for the kitchen door opened, and the
two children were caught up in two fat arms and hurried
into a pleasant kitchen, where bright brass and copper
pots hung on the walls, and between a large fire and a
large meat screen a leg of mutton turned round and
round with nobody to help it.

“Hold your noise,” said the owner of the fat arms, who
now proved to be a very stout woman in a chocolate-
coloured print gown sprigged with blue roses. She had a
large linen apron and a cap with flappy frills, and
between the frills just such another good, kind, jolly
face as Mrs. Honeysett’s own. “Here, stop your mouths,”
she said, “or your granny’ll be after you—to say nothing
of Boney. Stop your crying, do, and see what cookie’s
got for you.”

She opened a tin canister and picked out two lumps of

brown stuff that looked like sand—about the size and
shape of prunes they were.

“What’s that?” Edred asked.

“Drabbit me,” said the cook, “what a child it is! Not

know sugar when he sees it! Well, well, Master Edred,
what next, I should like to know?”

The children took the lumps and sucked them. They 82

were of sugar, sure enough, but the sugar had a strong,
coarse taste behind its sweetness, and if the children
had really not been quite extra polite and kind they
would have followed the promptings of Nature and——
But, of course, they knew that this would be both
disgusting and ungrateful. So they got the sugar down
somehow, while cook beamed at them with a wide, kind
smile between her cap-frills, and two hands, as big as
little beefsteak puddings, on her hips.

“Now, no more crybabying,” she said; “run along and

play.”
“We’ve got to take granny’s letter to post,” said Edred,
“and we don’t——”

“Cook,” said Elfrida, on a sudden impulse, “can you keep

a secret?”

“Can’t I?” said the cook. “Haven’t I kept the secret of

how furmety’s made, and Bakewell pies and all? There’s
no furmety to hold a candle to mine in this country, as
well you know.”

“We don’t know anything,” said Elfrida; “that’s just it.

And we daren’t let granny know how much we don’t
know. Something’s happened to us, so that we can’t
remember anything that happened more than an hour
ago.”

“Bless me,” said the cook, “don’t you remember old

cookie giving you the baked apple-dumplings when you
were sent to bed without your suppers a week come
Thursday?”

“No,” said Elfrida; “but I’m sure you did. Only what are 83
we to do?”

“You’re not deceiving poor cookie, are you now, like you
did about the French soldiers being hid in the windmill,
upsetting all the village like you did?”

“No; it’s true—it’s dreadfully true. You’ll have to help us.

We don’t remember anything, either of us.”

The cook sat down heavily in a polished arm-chair with

a patchwork cushion.

“She’s overlooked you. There’s not a doubt about it.

You’re bewitched. Oh, my pretty little dears, that ever I
should see the day——”

The cook’s fat, jolly face twisted and puckered in a way

with which each child was familiar in the face of the
other.

“Don’t cry,” they said both together; and Elfrida added,

“Who’s overlooked what?”

“Old Betty Lovell has—that I’ll be bound! She’s

bewitched you both, sure as eggs is eggs. I knew
there’d be some sort of a to-do when my lord had her
put in the stocks for stealing sticks in the wood. We’ve
got to get her to take it off, my dears, that’s what we’ve
got to do, for sure; without you could find a white
Mouldiwarp, and that’s not likely.”

“A white Mouldiwarp?” said both the children, and again

they spoke together like a chorus and looked at each
other like conspirators.

“You know the rhyme—oh! but if you’ve forgotten

everything you’ve forgotten that too.”

“Say it, won’t you?” said Edred.

“Let’s see, how do it go?— 84

“White Mouldiwarp a spell can make,

White Mouldiwarp a spell can break;
When all be well, let Mouldiwarp be,
When all goes ill, then turn to he.”

“Well, all’s not gone ill yet,” said Elfrida, wriggling her
neck in its prickly muslin tucker. “Let’s go and see the
witch.”
“You’d best take her something—a screw of sugar she’d
like, and a pinch of tea.”

“Why, she’d not say ‘Thank you’ for it,” said Edred,
looking at the tiny packets.

“I expect you’ve forgotten,” said cook gently, “that tea’s

ten shillings a pound and sugar’s gone up to three-and-
six since the war.”

“What war?”

“The French war. You haven’t forgotten we’re at war

with Boney and the French, and the bonfire we had up
at the church when the news came of the drubbing we
gave them at Trafalgar, and poor dear Lord Nelson and
all? And your grandfather reading out about it to them
from the ‘George’ balcony, and all the people waiting to
cheer, and him not able to get it out for choking pride
and because of Lord Nelson—God bless him!—and the
people couldn’t get their cheers out neither, for the
same cause, and every one blowing their noses and
shaking each other’s hands like as if it was a mad
funeral?”

“How splendid!” said Elfrida. “But we don’t remember

it.”

“Nor you don’t remember how you killed all the white 85
butterflies last year because you said they were
Frenchies in their white coats? And the birching you got,
for cruelty to dumb animals, his lordship said. You
howled for an hour together after it, so you did.”

“I’m glad we’ve forgotten that, anyhow,” said Edred.

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