hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their
heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?" And
every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said,
"Oh, _is_ this it?" But it never was, till they reached the very top of
the hill, just past the chalk-quarry and before you come to the
gravel-pit. And then there was a white house with a green garden and an
orchard beyond, and mother said, "Here we are!"

"How white the house is," said Robert.

"And look at the roses," said Anthea.

"And the plums," said Jane.

"It is rather decent," Cyril admitted.

The Baby said, "Wanty go walky;" and the hack stopped with a last rattle
and jolt.

Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to
get out of the carriage that very minute, but no one seemed to mind.
Mother, curiously enough, was in no hurry to get out; and even when she
had come down slowly and by the step, and with no jump at all, she
seemed to wish to see the boxes carried in, and even to pay the driver,
instead of joining in that first glorious rush round the garden and
orchard and the thorny, thistly, briery, brambly wilderness beyond the
broken gate and the dry fountain at the side of the house. But the
children were wiser, for once. It was not really a pretty house at all;
it was quite ordinary, and mother thought it was rather inconvenient,
and was quite annoyed at there being no shelves, to speak of, and hardly