he fled down the drive to meet his master, who had come a
good half-hour too soon for tea.

Jan continued to try and finish her letters while Captain Middleton,
coatless, on all-fours, enacted an elephant which the children rode in
turn. When he had completely ruined the knees of his trousers he arose
and declared it was time to play "Here we go round the mulberry-bush,"
and it so happened that once or twice he played it hand-in-hand with
Meg.

Jan left her letters and went out.

The situation puzzled her. She feared for Meg's peace of mind, for
Captain Middleton was undoubtedly attractive; and then she found herself
fearing for his.

After tea and more games with the children Captain Middleton escorted
his hostess to church, where he joined his aunt in the Manor seat.

During church Jan found herself wondering uneasily:

"Was everybody going to fall in love with Meg?"

"Would Peter?"

"What a disagreeable idea!"

And yet, why should it be?

Resolutely she told herself that Peter was at perfect liberty to fall
in love with Meg if he liked, and set herself to listen intelligently to
the Vicar's sermon.

* * * * *

Meg started to put her children to bed, only to find that her fertility
of imagination in the afternoon was to prove her undoing in the evening;
for her memory was by no means as reliable as her powers of invention.

Little Fay urgently demanded the whole cycle of little Mophez' dleams
over again. And for the life of her Meg couldn't remember them either in
their proper substance or sequence--and this in spite of the most
persistent prompting, and she failed utterly to reproduce the
entertainment of the afternoon. Both children were disappointed, but
little Fay, accustomed as she was to Auntie Jan's undeviating method of
narrating "Clipture," was angry as well. She fell into a passion of rage
and nearly screamed the house down. Since the night of Ayah's departure
there had not been such a scene.

Poor Meg vowed (though she knew she would break her vow the very first
time she was tempted) that never again would she tamper with Holy Writ,
and for some weeks she coldly avoided both Jophez and Mophez as topics
of conversation.

Meg could never resist playing at things, and what "Clipture" the
children learned from Jan in the morning they insisted on enacting with
Meg later in the day.

Sometimes she was seized with misgiving as to the propriety of these
represen