streets on which quick men, something of his kidney, did the
business denied to him.

"We hear and we obey, Mrs. Shonts," said Sophie, feeling his
unrest as he drank the loathed British tea.

Mrs. Shonts smiled, and took them in hand. She wrote widely and
telegraphed far on their behalf till, armed with her letter of
introduction, she drove them into that wilderness which is
reached from an ash-barrel of a station called Charing Cross.
They were to go to Rockett's--the farm of one Cloke, in the
southern counties--where, she assured them, they would meet the
genuine England of folklore and song.

Rocketts they found after some hours, four miles from a station,
and, so far as they could, judge in the bumpy darkness, twice as
many from a road. Trees, kine, and the outlines of barns showed
shadowy about them when they alighted, and Mr. and Mrs. Cloke, at
the open door of a deep stone-floored kitchen, made them shyly
welcome. They lay in an attic beneath a wavy whitewashed ceiling,
and, because it rained, a wood fire was made in an iron basket on
a brick hearth, and they fell asleep to the chirping of mice and
the whimper of flames.

When they woke it was a fair day, full of the noises, of birds,
the smell of box lavender, and fried bacon, mixed with an
elemental smell they had never met before.

"This," said Sophie, nearly pushing out the thin casement in an
attempt to see round the, corner, " is--what did the hack-cabman