y's pies, and even stern Hannah was compelled,
quite unconsciously, to contribute her share in the opulent happiness of
their little world.

But it took it out of Meg.

For weeks she had been on the alert to prevent storms and tempests. Now
that the children's barometer seemed at "set fair" she suddenly felt
very tired.

Jan had been watching her, and on that particular Sunday, had she been
able to catch Meg before she got up, Jan would have dressed the children
and kept her in bed. But Meg was too nimble for her, washed and dressed
her charges, and appeared at breakfast looking a "wispy wraith."

She had slept badly; a habit formed in her under-nourished youth which
she found hard to break; and she had, in consequence, been sitting up in
bed at five in the morning to make buttonholes in garden smocks for
Tony.

This would have enraged Jan had she but known it. But Meg, frank and
honest as the day in most things, was, at times, curiously secretive;
and so far had entirely eluded Jan's vigilance. By the time Anne Chitt
came with the awakening tea there wasn't a vestige of smock, needles, or
cotton to be seen, and so far lynx-eyed little Fay had never awoke in
time to catch her at it.

This morning, however, Jan exerted her authority. She slung the hammock
between two trees in the sunniest part of the garden; she wrapped Meg in
her own fur coat, which was far too big for Meg; covered her with a
particularly soft, warm rug, gave her a book, a sun-umbrella, and her
cigarette case; and forbade her to move till lunch-time unless it
rained.

Then she took the two children and William into Squire Walcote's woods
for the morning and Meg fell fast asleep.

Warm with the double glow that came from being wrapped in Jan's coat
because Jan loved her; lulled by the songs of birds and a soft, shy wind
that ruffled the short hair about her forehead, little Meg was supremely
happy. To be tired, to be made to rest, to be kissed and tucked in and
sternly commanded to stay where she was till she was fetched--all this,
so commonplace to cherished, cared-for folk, seemed quite wonderful to
Meg, and she snuggled down among the cushions in blissful content.

Meanwhile, on that same Sunday morning, Captain Middleton, at Amber
Guiting Manor, was trying to screw his courage up to the announcement
that he did not intend to accompany his aunt and uncle to church. Lady
Mary Walcote was his mother's only sister, and Mrs. Walcote, wife of
J