ettled for the day, with a suitable magazine. When the bells
began to clang the young people, primly hatted, their prayer-books in
their hands, walked to the neighbouring church. There Laura sat once
more between the boys, Marina and Georgy stationed like sentinels at
the ends of the pew, ready to pounce down on their brothers if
necessary, to confiscate animals and eatables, or to rap impish
knuckles with a Bible. It was a spacious church; the pew was in a side
aisle; one could see neither reading-desk nor pulpit; and the words of
the sermon seemed to come from a great way off.

After dinner, Laura and the boys were dispatched to the garden, to
stroll about in Sunday fashion. Here no elder person being present, the
natural feelings of the trio came out: the distaste of a quiet little
girl for rough boys and their pranks; the resentful indignation of the
boys at having their steps dogged by a sneak and a tell-tale. As soon
as they had rounded the tennis-court and were out of sight of the
house, Erwin and Marmaduke clambered over the palings and dropped into
the street, vowing a mysterious vengeance on Laura if she went indoors
without them. The child sat down on the edge of the lawn under a
mulberry tree and propped her chin on her hands. She was too timid to
return to the house and brave things out; she was also afraid of some
one coming into the garden and finding her alone, and of her then being
forced to "tell"; for most of all she feared the boys, and their vague,
rude threats. So she sat and waited ... and waited. The shadows on the
grass changed their shapes before her eyes; distant chapel-bells
tinkled their quarter of an hour and were still again; the blighting
torpor of a Sunday afternoon lay over the world. Would to-morrow ever
come? She counted on her fingers the hours that had still to crawl by
before she could get back to school--counted twice over to be sure of
them--and all but yawned her head off, with ennui. But time passed, and
passed, and nothing happened. She was on the verge of tears, when two
black heads bobbed up above the fence, the boys scrambled over, red and
breathless, and hurried her into tea.

She wakened next morning at daybreak, so eager was she to set out. But
Marina had a hundred and one odd jobs to do before she was ready to
start, and it struck half-past nine as the two of them neared the
College. Child-like, Laura felt no special gratitude for the heavy pot
of mulberry jam Marina b