campstool on which she sat, looking pathetically ethereal. Of such stuff
as this is the backbone of England made, which is perhaps why the
backbone of England sometimes seems so sadly inflexible.

There was a screeching noise outside, followed by an incredible crash.
It seemed to cleave a bottomless abyss between one second and the next,
so that one seemed to be conscious for the first time in an astonished
and astonishing world.

Lady Arabel said: "Boys will be boys, of course I know, but really this
is going a little too far. Pinehurst's one hobby was his windows."

The campstooled mother gave a luxurious little shriek as soon as the
crash was safely over. "The villains," she said kittenishly. "Aiming at
places of worship as usual. I am absolutely paralysed with terror. Mary,
darling, I don't believe you turned a hair."

"Pas un cheval," replied her firm daughter, in not unnatural error. One
could easily see that she was beloved at home, and one wondered why.

The sound of the guns seemed only a negative form of sound after the
bomb, and clearly above the firing could be heard a howl. The Vicar's
dog, still howling, ran into the crypt.

"RUPERT!" said the Vicar, in a terrible voice, interrupting himself in
the middle of a cheering platitude. But he had no time to say anything
more, for behind Rupert came a procession of perhaps a dozen people, all
dressed in sheets. Everybody saw at one pitiful glance that these were
unfortunate householders, so suddenly roused from oblivion as to forget
all their ordinary suburban dignity, probably barely escaping from