kind with Anne, and I think she softens him."

Still Mrs. Woodford would gladly not have been bound to her colander
and preserving-pan in her still-room, where her guest's housewifely
mind found great scope for inquiry and comment, lasting for nearly
two hours.

When at length the operations were over, and numerous little pots of
jam tied up as specimens for the Archfield family to taste at home,
the children were not in sight. No doubt, said Mrs. Woodford, they
would be playing in the castle court, and the visitor accompanied
her thither in some anxiety about broken walls and steps, but they
were not in sight, nor did calls bring them.

The children had gone out together, Anne feeling altogether at ease
and natural with congenial playmates. Even Sedley's tortures were
preferable to Peregrine's attentions, since the first were only the
tyranny of a graceless boy, the other gave her an indescribable
sense of strangeness from which these ordinary mundane comrades were
a relief and protection.

However, Charles and Sedley rushed off to see a young colt in which
they were interested, and Lucy, in spite of her first shrinking,
found Peregrine better company than she could have expected, when he
assisted in swinging her and Anne by turns under the old ash tree.

When the other two were seen approaching, the swinging girl hastily
sprang out, only too well aware what Sedley's method of swinging
would be. Then as the boys came up followed inquiries why Peregrine
had not joined them, and jests in schoolboy taste ensued as to elf-