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eventnd she had drawn up the Venetian blinds, for she could no longer complain of the sun doing harm to her furniture.
    The room still looked dismal in the light of the wintry sun. None of the pictures took any cheer from the light. St. Stephen looked more tortured, the Queen more disagreeable and Christ hadn changed at all.
    Miss Anabel arrived at the usual time, which was just after dinner. She looked lovely in a coat trimmed with fur and a sealskin muff, like the big sister of mine.
    I hugged her and thanked her for the gifts.
    ne day,she said, oue going to have a pony. I am going to insist.
    We talked as we always did. I showed her my books and we discussed school. I never told her about the teasing I received from Anthony Felton and his cronies because I knew that would worry her.
    So the day passed with Anabel and in due course the fly came to take her back to the station. It seemed like just another of Anabel visits, but this was not quite the case.
    It was Matty who told me about the man at the King William Inn.
    Tom was working there after school, carrying luggage into rooms and making himself generally useful. t a second string to his bow,said Matty. n case it don work out with the blacksmith.
    Tom had told her about the man at the inn and Matty told me.
    regular shindy-do there was up at the King William,she said. e was a very high and mighty gentleman. Staying there in the best room. He arrived in a temper, he did. It was all along of there being no fly to take him to the King William when he got off the train. Well, how could there be? The fly was in use, wasn it?Matty nudged me. ou had a visitor yesterday, didn you? Well, Mr. High and Mighty had to wait, and there one thing that kind of gentleman don like much and that being kept waiting.
    t doesn really take long for the fly to come to Crabtree Cottage and go back to the station.
    h, but rich important gentlemen don like waiting one little minute while others is served. I had it from Jim Fenner.(He was our stationmaster, porter and man of all work at the station.) here he was standing on the platform ranting and raging while the fly went off carrying your young lady in it. He kept saying, here is it going? How far?And old Jim he says, all upset like, because he could see this was a real gentleman, Jim says, ell, sir, it won be that long. as only gone to Crabtree Cottage on the green with the young lady.rabtree Cottage,he roars, nd where might that be? Tis only on the green, sir. There by the church. Not much more than a stone throw. The young lady could walk it in ten minutes. But she always takes the fly like and books it to bring her back to catch her train.Well, that seemed to satisfy him and he said he wait. He asked Jim a lot of questions. He turned out to be a talkative sort of gentleman when he wasn angry. He got all civil like and gave Jim five shillings. It not every day Jim sees the likes of that. He says he hopes that gentleman stays a long time.
    I couldn stay talking to Matty, of course, so I left her and ran back to the cottage. It was getting dark early now and we left school in twilight. Miss Brent had said we should leave at three olock in winter because that would give the children who lived farther away time to get home before darkness fell. In the summer we finished at four. We started at eight in the morning instead of nine as in the summer and it was quite dark at eight.
    Aunt Amelia was putting some leaves together. She said: going to take these to the church, Suewellyn. Theye for the altar. It a pity there are no flowers at this time of the year. Vicar was saying it looked bare after the autumn flowers were finished, so I said I would find some leaves and we would use them. He seemed to think it was a good idea. You can come with me.
    I put my school bag in my room and dutifully went downstairs. We crossed the green to the church.
    There was a hushed silence there. The stained glass windows looked different without the sun or even the