d the bull, "if a spider was to fall from
the ceiling on to the table, wouldn't it?"

"Spiders don't fall from ceilings."

"Yes, they do. Our Min told us she'd seen a spider as big as a saucer,
with long hairs on it like a gooseberry."

Quickly all the little heads were jerked up; all the little bodies drew
together, pressed together.

"Why doesn't somebody come and call us?" cried the rooster.

Oh, those grown-ups, laughing and snug, sitting in the lamp-light,
drinking out of cups! They'd forgotten about them. No, not really
forgotten. That was what their smile meant. They had decided to leave
them there all by themselves.

Suddenly Lottie gave such a piercing scream that all of them jumped off
the forms, all of them screamed too. "A face--a face looking!" shrieked
Lottie.

It was true, it was real. Pressed against the window was a pale face,
black eyes, a black beard.

"Grandma! Mother! Somebody!"

But they had not got to the door, tumbling over one another, before it
opened for Uncle Jonathan. He had come to take the little boys home.

Chapter 1.X.

He had meant to be there before, but in the front garden he had come
upon Linda walking up and down the grass, stopping to pick off a dead
pink or give a top-heavy carnation something to lean against, or to take
a deep breath of something, and then walking on again, with her little
air of remoteness. Over her white frock she wore a yellow, pink-fringed
shawl from the Chinaman's shop.

"Hallo, Jonathan!" called Linda. And Jonathan whipped off his shabby
panama, pressed it against his breast, dropped on one knee, and kissed
Linda's hand.

"Greeting, my Fair One! Greeting, my Celestial Peach Blossom!" boomed
the bass voice gently. "Where are the other noble dames?"

"Beryl's out playing bridge and mother's giving the boy his bath... Have
you come to borrow something?"

The Trouts were for ever running out of things and sending across to the
Burnells' at the last moment.

But Jonathan only answered, "A little love, a little kindness;" and he
walked by his sister-in-law's side.

Linda dropped into Beryl's hammock under the manuka-tree, and Jonathan
stretched himself on the grass beside her, pulled a long stalk and began
chewing it. They knew each other well. The voices of children cried from
the other gardens. A fisherman's light cart shook along the sandy road,
and from far away they heard a dog barking; it was muffled as though the
dog had its head i