ters lived in a house called
Cobble Place. It stood close to the road and was two stories high, very
trim and covered with cotoneaster. On either side of the door were two
windows and above it in a level row five more windows: the roof was
thatched. On the left of the house were double doors which led into the
stable-yard, a large stable-yard overlooked by a number of irregular
gables in the side of the house and continually fluttered by white
fantail pigeons. Into the stable-yard the dun pony turned, where,
clustered in the side entrance of Cobble Place under a clematis-wreathed
porch, stood Mrs. Carthew and Miss May Carthew and Miss Joan Carthew,
all smiling very pleasantly at Michael and all evidently very glad to
see him safely arrived. Michael climbed out of the chaise and politely
shook hands with Mrs. Carthew and said he was very well and had had a
comfortable journey and would like some tea very much, although if Nancy
thought it was best he was quite ready to see her donkey before doing
anything else. However, Nancy was told that she must wait, and soon
Michael was sitting at a large round table in a shady dining-room,
eating hot buttered tea-cake and chocolate cake and macaroons, with
bread-and-butter as an afterthought of duty. He enjoyed drinking his tea
out of a thin teacup and he liked the silver and the satin tea-cosy and
the yellow Persian cat purring on the hearthrug and the bullfinch
flitting from perch to perch of his bright cage. He noticed with
pleasure that the pictures on the wall were full of interest and detail,
and was particularly impressed by two very long steel engravings of the
Death of Nelson and the Meeting of Wellington and Blucher on the field
of Waterloo. The only flaw in his pleasure was the difficulty of
addressing Miss May Carthew and Miss Joan Carthew, and he wished that
his own real Miss Carthew would suggest a solution. As for the bedroom
to which he was taken after tea, Michael thought there never could have
been such a jolly room before. It was just the right size, as snug as
possible with its gay wall-paper and crackling chintzes and ribboned
bed. The counterpane was patchwork and therefore held the promise of
perpetual entertainment. The dressing-table was neatly set with china
toilet articles whose individual importance Michael could not discover.
One in particular like the antler of a stag stuck upright in a china
tray he was very anxious to understand, and when he was told i