instead."

"And how are you going to get back?"

"I'll have to walk, I expect, without I can pick up with a cart."

Frances Freeland compressed her lips. "With that leg you should have
come by train."

The old man smiled.

"I hadn't the fare like," he said. "I only gets five shillin's a week,
from the council, and two o' that I pays over to my son."

Frances Freeland thrust her hand once more into that deep pocket, and as
she did so she noticed that the old man's left boot was flapping open,
and that there were two buttons off his coat. Her mind was swiftly
calculating: "It is more than seven weeks to quarter day. Of course I
can't afford it, but I must just give him a sovereign."

She withdrew her hand from the recesses of her pocket and looked at
the old man's nose. It was finely chiselled, and the same yellow as his
face. "It looks nice, and quite sober," she thought. In her hand was her
purse and a boot-lace. She took out a sovereign.

"Now, if I give you this," she said, "you must promise me not to spend
any of it in the public-house. And this is for your boot. And you must
go back by train. And get those buttons sewn on your coat. And tell
cook, from me, please, to give you some tea and an egg." And noticing
that he took the sovereign and the boot-lace very respectfully,
and seemed altogether very respectable, and not at all coarse or
beery-looking, she said:

"Good-by; don't forget to rub what I gave you into your leg every night
and every morning," and went back to her camp-stool. Sitting down on it
with the scissors in her hand, she still did not cut out that recipe,
but remained as before, taking in small, definite things, and feeling
with an inner trembling that dear Felix and Alan and Nedda would soon be
here; and the little flush rose again in her cheeks, and again her lips
and hands moved, expressing and compressing what was in her heart. And
close behind her, a peacock, straying from the foundations of the old
Moreton house, uttered a cry, and moved slowly, spreading its tail under
the low-hanging boughs of the copper-beeches, as though it knew
those dark burnished leaves were the proper setting for its 'parlant'
magnificence.

CHAPTER V

The day after the little conference at John's, Felix had indeed received
the following note:

"DEAR FELIX:

"When you go down to see old Tod, why not put up with us at Becket?
Any time will suit, and the car can take you over to Joyfields when you