l! And I was daring myself. Very daring _I_ was. Out and
about. Hollering after boys. The slappings I've had. But I enjoyed
myself. And if I sat down a bit tender, that's better than a sore heart,
I used to think."

"I expect you enjoyed yourself," said Annie. "I was one of the quiet
ones, I was. Any little trip, and I was sick."

"Couldn't bear the motion, I suppose?" Cook enquired.

"Oh, it wasn't the travelling as did it. It was the excitement. I was
dreadfully sick in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral."

"What a grand place it is, though," said Mrs. Frith, nodding. "Oh,
beautiful. So solemn. I've sat there with my late husband, eating nuts
as peaceful as if we was in a real church. Beautiful. And that
whispering gallery! The things you hear. Oh--well. I like a bit of fun,
I do. I remember----"

Then Nurse came downstairs, and Michael was taken up to bed away from
what he knew would be an enthralling conversation between Annie and
Cook. It was hateful to be compelled to march up all those stairs
farther and farther away from the cheerful voices in the basement.

August arrived without bringing Michael's mother, and he did not care
for the days by the sea without her. Stella, to be sure, was beginning
to show signs of one day being an intelligent companion, but Nurse under
the influence of heat grew more repressive than ever, and the whole
seaside ached with his mother's absence. Michael was not allowed to
speak to strange children and was still dependent on rare treats to
illuminate his dulness. The landlady's husband, Mr. Wagland, played the
harmonium and made jokes with Nurse, while Mrs. Wagland sang hymns and
whispered with Nurse. A gleam of variety came into Michael's life when
Mr. Wagland told him he could catch birds by putting salt on their
tails, and for many afternoons, always with a little foolscap of salt,
Michael walked about the sunburnt-grass patch in front of the house,
waiting for sparrows to perch and vainly flinging pinches of salt in the
direction of their tails.

Church was more exciting by the seaside than at home, where every Sunday
morning during the long sermon Michael subsided slowly from a wooden
bench in the gallery on to a disembowelled hassock, or languished
through the Litany with a taste of varnish in his mouth caused by an
attempt to support his endurance by licking the back of the pew in
front. Nurse told him of wonderful churches with music and incense and
candles and scarlet