her new friends.

"Well, I don't think we're exactly what you'd call prim and proper,"
chuckled Meg.

There were still a few days before Christmas, and the energies of the
whole family were focused on decorations. There were not many people in
the village with leisure to help, so most of the work fell upon the
Flemings. They tramped down to the church, bearing great armfuls of
evergreens, strings of holly-berries, and texts cut out in paper
letters. The girls sat in a pew and twisted garlands of yew and laurel,
which the boys, with the aid of a short ladder, fastened round the
pillars. Mrs. Fleming was fitting panels of cotton wool on to the
pulpit, and sprinkling them with artificial frost.

"We ought to have lots of flags about the place this Christmas," said
Monty, "to make it a sort of victory celebration as well. I'll put two
or three over the organ, and stick some round the monuments. What I'd
like would be to see our huge Union Jack hanging down over that blank
wall there."

"Well, why don't you put it?" enquired Diana, looking up from her
wreath-twisting.

"All very well, madam, but how am I going to get it there? That's a
little detail which escapes your feminine observation. Please to note
the height of our ladder and the height of that wall, and compare the
difference."

"I'd get up on to that passage and fix it," nodding to the triforium.

"Would you, indeed, Miss America? I rather think I see you toddling
along there, with a drop of thirty feet below you."

"Do you dare me to?"

"You're brave enough down here in a pew, but I don't believe any girl
would have the head for that. Women aren't steeple-jacks!"

"You needn't speak so scornfully. There may be a few steeple-jennies
among them!"

"No fear," laughed Monty, turning away.

Diana said nothing more, but as she went on with her wreath her thoughts
were as busy as her fingers. She was more silent than usual at lunch,
and slipped away quickly afterwards, leaving the family talking round
the fire. First, she ran upstairs to the corner of the upper landing,
where she knew the big Union Jack was kept. She rolled it into a tight
bundle, tucked it under her arm, then tore off to the church. She found
herself alone there, for none of the other decorators had returned. It
was exactly the opportunity she wanted. The bunch of keys was hanging in
the big door. She pulled them out, and carried them to the tiny door by
the chancel steps. This she unlock