himself had arranged to depart the
day after--an event to which the entire household, with the single
exception of Olive, looked forward with the greatest eagerness.

No message came from Piers that night, and Avery wondered a little, but
without uneasiness. He must have so very much to think of and do at such
a time, she reflected. He would scarcely even have begun to feel the
dreadful loneliness.

But when the next day passed, and still no answer came, a vague anxiety
awoke within her. Surely her message had reached him! Surely he must have
read it! The Piers she knew would have dashed off some species of reply
at once. How was it he delayed?

The day of the funeral came, and the Easter flowers were all taken away.
The Vicarage blinds were drawn, the bell tolled again, and Jeanie,
weighed down with a dreadful sense of wickedness, lay face downwards on
the schoolroom sofa and wept and wept.

Avery was very anxious about her. The disgrace and punishment of the
past few days had told upon her. She was sick with trouble and
depression, and Avery could find no means of comforting her. She had
meant herself to slip out and to go to the funeral for Piers' sake, but
she felt she could not leave the child. So she sat with her in the
darkened room, listening to her broken sobbing, aware that in the
solitude of her room Gracie was crying too, and longing passionately to
gather together all five of the luckless offenders and deliver them from
their land of bondage.

But there was to be no deliverance that day, nor any lightening of the
burden. The funeral over, the Vicar returned and sent for each child
separately to the study for prayer and admonition. Jeanie was the last to
face this ordeal and before it was half over Avery was sent for also to
find her lying on the study sofa in a dead faint.

Avery's indignation was intense, but she could not give it vent. Even the
Vicar was a little anxious, and when Avery's efforts succeeded at length
in restoring her, he reprimanded Jeanie severely and reduced her once
more to tears of uncontrollable distress.

The long, dreary day came to an end at last, and the thought of a happier
morrow comforted them all. But Avery, though she slept that night, was
troubled by a dream that came to her over and over again throughout the
long hours. She seemed to see Piers, as he had once described himself, a
prisoner behind bars; and ever as she looked upon him he strove with
gigantic efforts t