g back were full of
animated people who evidently had achieved interest.

Miss Heap became more and more alert as they approached the bend in the
lane round which the Twist house was situated. She had been there
before, making a point of getting a friend to motor her past it in
order to see what she could for herself, but Mr. Ridding, in spite of
his desire to go and have a look too, had always, each time he tried to,
found Mrs. Ridding barring the way. So that he didn't exactly know where
it was; and when on turning the corner the car suddenly stopped, and
putting his head out--he was sitting backwards--- he saw a great,
old-fashioned signboard, such as he was accustomed to in pictures of
ancient English village greens, with

The Open Arms

in medieval letters painted on it, all he said was, "Guess we've run it
to earth."

Miss Heap sat with her hands in her lap, staring. Mrs. Ridding, her mind
blocked by aspic, wasn't receiving impressions. She gazed with heavy
eyes straight in front of her. There she saw cars. Many cars. All
stopped at this particular spot. With a dull sensation of fathomless
fatigue she dimly wondered at them.

"Looks as though it's a hostelry," said Mr. Ridding, who remembered his
Dickens; and he blinked up, craning his head out, at the signboard, on
which through a gap in the branches of the pepper trees a shaft of
brilliant late afternoon sun was striking. "Don't see one, though."

He jerked his thumb. "Up back of the trees there, I reckon," he said.

Then he prepared to open the door and go and have a look.

A hand shot out of Miss Heap's lap at him. "Don't," she said quickly.
"Don't, Mr. Ridding."

There was a little green gate in the thick hedge that grew behind the
pepper trees, and some people he knew, who had been in the car in front,
were walking up to it. Some other people he knew had already got to it,
and were standing talking together with what looked like leaflets in
their hands. These leaflets came out of a green wooden box fastened on
to one of the gate-posts, with the words _Won't you take one_? painted
on it.

Mr. Ridding naturally wanted to go and take one, and here was Miss Heap
laying hold of him and saying "Don't."

"Don't what?" he asked looking down at her, his hand on the door.

"Hello Ridding," called out one of the people he knew. "No good getting
out. Show doesn't open till to-morrow at four. Can't get in to-day.
Gate's bolted. Nothing doing."

And