e a big pale gloire-de-Dijon rose all
on one side, with pale golden wavy hair, and great big goggly blue
eyes, looking as if she couldn't help it! Now that we have given you
details, from Sally's inner consciousness, of Miss Peplow's
appearance, we hope you will perceive why she said she "golloped." We
don't, exactly.

However, on this Christmas morning it was made clear whom this young
donkey was hankering after--this is Sally's way of putting it--as Miss
Peplow failed to get her usual place through being late, and had to
sit in a side-aisle, instead of the opposite of her to the idiot--we
are again borrowing from Sally--and now the Idiot would have to glare
round over his shoulder at her or go without! It was soon evident that
he was quite content to go without, and that Sally herself had been
his lode-star. The certainty of this was what prevented her taking so
much notice of her mother as she might otherwise have done.

Had she done so closely, she would hardly have put down her
preoccupation, or tension, or whatever it was, to displeasure at Mr.
Fenwick's going to skate on Christmas morning instead of going to
church. What concern was it of theirs what Mr. Fenwick did?

CHAPTER VI

OF BOXING DAY MORNING AT KRAKATOA VILLA, AND WHAT OBSERVANT CREATURES
FOSSILS ARE

The "dear old fossil" referred to by Miss Sally was one of those
occurrences--auxiliaries or encumbrances, as may be--whom one is
liable to meet with in almost any family, who are so forcibly taken
for granted by all its members that the infection of their acceptance
catches on, and no new-comer ever asks that they should be explained.
If they were relatives, they would be easy of explanation; but the
only direct information you ever get about them is that they are not.
This seems to block all avenues of investigation, and presently you
find yourself taking them as a matter of course, like the Lion and
Unicorn, or the image on a stamp.

Fenwick accepted "the Major," as the old fossil was called, so frankly
and completely under that name that he was still uncertain about his
real designation at the current moment of the story. Nobody ever
called him anything but "the Major," and he would as soon have asked
"Major what?" as called in question the title of the King of Hearts
instead of playing him on the Queen, and taking the trick. So far as
he could conjecture, the Major had accepted him in the same way. When
the railway adventure was deta