ep, and then you must be
thinking of going to bed."

Small hands seized Philip, and he was dragged towards the hut. He went in
and struck a match. There was no furniture in it; and beside a tin box, in
which clothes were kept, there was nothing but the beds; there were three
of them, one against each wall. Athelny followed Philip in and showed them
proudly.

"That's the stuff to sleep on," he cried. "None of your spring-mattresses
and swansdown. I never sleep so soundly anywhere as here. YOU will
sleep between sheets. My dear fellow, I pity you from the bottom of my
soul."

The beds consisted of a thick layer of hopvine, on the top of which was a
coating of straw, and this was covered with a blanket. After a day in the
open air, with the aromatic scent of the hops all round them, the happy
pickers slept like tops. By nine o'clock all was quiet in the meadow and
everyone in bed but one or two men who still lingered in the public-house
and would not come back till it was closed at ten. Athelny walked there
with Philip. But before he went Mrs. Athelny said to him:

"We breakfast about a quarter to six, but I daresay you won't want to get
up as early as that. You see, we have to set to work at six."

"Of course he must get up early," cried Athelny, "and he must work like
the rest of us. He's got to earn his board. No work, no dinner, my lad."

"The children go down to bathe before breakfast, and they can give you a
call on their way back. They pass The Jolly Sailor."

"If they'll wake me I'll come and bathe with them," said Philip.

Jane and Harold and Edward shouted with delight at the prospect, and next
morning Philip was awakened out of a sound sleep by their bursting into
his room. The boys jumped on his bed, and he had to chase them out with
his slippers. He put on a coat and a pair of trousers and went down. The
day had only just broken, and there was a nip in the air; but the sky was
cloudless, and the sun was shining yellow. Sally, holding Connie's hand,
was standing in the middle of the road, with a towel and a bathing-dress
over her arm. He saw now that her sun-bonnet was of the colour of
lavender, and against it her face, red and brown, was like an apple. She
greeted him with her slow, sweet smile, and he noticed suddenly that her
teeth were small and regular and very white. He wondered why they had
never caught his attention before.

"I was for letting you sleep on," she said, "but they would go up and