've got to come. And now," she said to
Hester, "tell me all about your home and your caravan;" and Hester
again told the story, saying "Lady Rusper" with an ease that made
Gregory gasp.

After lunch they all went to the stables, where, in a loose-box,
beautifully snug in the straw, lay another black spaniel, Venus, with
three puppies ("Oh, the darlings!" cried Hester) snuggling to her.

"Do you think your mother would let you keep a spaniel?" Aunt May asked.

"Oh, yes, now we've got Diogenes as a start," she answered.

"Very well, then," said Aunt May, "if you'd like one of these, you
shall have it directly it's old enough to be sent away--as a memory of
to-day, and as a thankofferin', too. Which would you like," she added,
"Psyche, Cicero, or Circe? This is Cicero, this is Circe, and this is
Psyche."

"Why do all their names begin with 'S'?" Gregory asked; and it was not
till he told Janet about it that he understood why it was that everyone
had laughed so.

"And if you may keep two," Aunt May went on, speaking to Gregory, "I
shall send you one of the next litter. Vesta is going to have puppies
soon. You must write and let me know. And now, if your man has
finished, I expect you'd like to be gettin' on, or the others will be
nervous about you."

And so, after Hester had chosen Circe, they all said very affectionate
farewells, and the Slowcoach rumbled forth again.

Meanwhile, what of Janet and Robert and Mary and Jack and Horace? They
had had no adventures at all--nothing but scenery and a pleasant picnic.

Robert had been rightly told about the summit of Bredon Hill, for there
the grass is as short as on the South Downs, and there is a deep fosse
in which to shelter from the wind.

The hill at this western point ends suddenly, at a kind of precipice,
and you look right over the valley of the Avon and the Severn to the
Malverns. Just below on the south-west is Tewkesbury, where the Severn
and the Avon meet, after that becoming the Severn only all the way to
Bristol and the sea. In the far south-west rises the point of the Sugar
Loaf at Abergavenny, and the blue distance is Wales--the country of
King Arthur and Malory.

To the north-west is the smoke of Worcester, and immediately beneath
the hill, winding shiningly about, is the Avon, running by Bredon
village and the Combertons and Pershore, past Cropthorne (where Mr.
MacAngus was perhaps even now painting) and Wood Norton (where the Duke
of Orleans, who