paroxysms of fury. "Would it be any better if I called
him _Kitchener_?" hissing the word into the animal's face. "Jealous,
Bobs? Eh? _Kitchener_." This last word had a rasping sound that
irritated the little creature more than ever; his teeth jibbered with
anger, and Miss Smeardon had to offer him a saucer of cream before he
could be calmed down enough for the rest of the party to hear
themselves speak.

"Had you nice letters this morning? Mine were very uninteresting,"
Robinette remarked to Lavendar as they stood together at the doorway
in the sunshine, while Carnaby chased the lap-dog round and round the
lawn.

"I had only two letters; one was from my sister Amy, the candid one!
her letters are not generally exhilarating."

"Oh, I know, home letters are usually enough to send one straight to
bed with a headache! They never sound a note of hope from first to
last; although if you had no home, but only a house, like me, with no
one but a caretaker in it, you'd be very thankful to get them, doleful
or not."

"I doubt it," Mark answered, for Amy's letter seemed to be burning a
hole in his pocket at that moment. He had skimmed it hurriedly
through, but parts of it were already only too plain.

When the others had gone into the house, he went off by himself, and
jumping the low fence that divided the lawn from the fields beyond, he
flung himself down under a tree to read it over again. Carnaby,
spying him there, came rushing from the house, and was soon pouring
out a tale of something that had happened somewhere, and throwing
stones as he talked, at the birds circling about the ivied tower of
the little church.

The field was full of buttercups up to the very churchyard walls. "I
must get away by myself for a bit," Lavendar thought. "That boy's
chatter will drive me mad." At this point Carnaby's volatile attention
was diverted by the sight of a gardener mounting a ladder to clear the
sparrows' nests from the water chutes, and he jumped up in a twinkling
to take his part in this new joy. Lavendar rose, and strolled off with
his hands in his pockets and his bare head bent. The grass he walked
in was a very Field of the Cloth of Gold. His shoes were gilded by the
pollen from the buttercups, his eyes dazzled by their colour; it was a
relief to pass through the stone archway that led into the little
churchyard. To his spirit at that moment the chill was refreshing. He
loitered about for a few minutes, and then seeing th