silvery-oak weather-boarding; buttresses of mixed flint and
bricks; outside stairs, stone upon arched stone; curves of thatch
where grass sprouted; roundels of house-leeked tiles, and a huge
paved yard populated by two cows and the repentant Rambler. He
had not thought of himself or of the telegraph office for two and
a half hours.

"But why," said Sophie, as they went back through the crater of
stricken fields,--" why is one expected to know everything in
England? Why do they never tell?"

"You mean about the Elphicks and the Moones?" he answered.

"Yes--and the lawyers and the estate. Who are they? I wonder
whether those painted floors in the green room were real oak.
Don't you like us exploring things together--better than
Pompeii?"

George turned once more to look at the view. "Eight hundred acres
go with the house--the old man told me. Five farms altogether.
Rocketts is one of 'em."

"I like Mrs. Cloke. But what is the old house called?"

George laughed. "That's one of the things you're expected to
know. He never told me."

The Clokes were more communicative. That evening and thereafter
for a week they gave the Chapins the official history, as one
gives it to lodgers, of Friars Pardon the house and its five