Hearty Welcome to All," "A Happy New Year," and the like, but the
Squire's daughters insisted that they liked to see them, and the
farmers' daughters confirming this theory, up they went, above the
evergreen frieze, the white cotton letters standing out conspicuously
from their turkey-red background.

It was one o'clock before the work was finished, and a tired and
distinctly grubby quartette started out on their three-mile return walk
across the fields. Certainly country-bred folk were regardless of
fatigue! "If I owned a motor I should _use_ it!" Darsie said to
herself with a distinct air of grievance as she climbed to her own room
after lunch, and laid herself wearily on her couch, the while the
Percival trio trotted gaily forth for "just a round" over their private
golf-links.

The evening programme was to begin with a concert, alternate items of
which were to be given by the villagers and members of the surrounding
"families."

At ten o'clock refreshments were to be served, in adjoining classrooms,
and during the progress of the informal supper chairs and forms were to
be lifted away, and the room cleared for an informal dance, to be
concluded by a general joining of hands and singing of "Auld Lang Syne"
as the clock struck twelve.

The Percival ladies and their guests from the surrounding houses made
elaborate toilettes for the occasion. The villagers were resplendent in
Sunday blacks, "best frocks" and bead chains, the small girls and boys
appearing respectively in white muslins and velveteen Lord Fauntleroy
suits; the Squire opened proceedings with expressions of good wishes,
interspersed with nervous coughs, and Noreen and Ida led off the musical
proceedings with a lengthy classical duet, to which the audience
listened with politely concealed boredom.

To Darsie's mind, the entire programme as supplied by "the families" was
dull to extinction, but to one possessing even her own slight knowledge
of the village, the contributions of its worthies were brimful of
interest and surprise.

The red-faced butcher, who, on ordinary occasions, appeared to have no
mind above chops and steaks, was discovered to possess a tenor voice
infinitely superior in tone to that of his patron, the Hon. Ivor Bruce,
while his wife achieved a tricky accompaniment with a minimum of
mistakes; the sandy-haired assistant at the grocer's shop supplied a
flute obbligato, and the fishmonger and the young lady from the
stationer's