proceeded far, she met the postman, laden to the neck with letter-
bags, of which he had not yet deposited one.

'Are the shops open yet, Samuel?' she said.

'O no,' replied that stooping pedestrian, not waiting to stand
upright. 'They won't be open yet this hour, except the saddler and
ironmonger and little tacker-haired machine-man for the farm folk.
They downs their shutters at half-past six, then the baker's at half-
past seven, then the draper's at eight.'

'O, the draper's at eight.' It was plain that Margery had wanted the
draper's.

The postman turned up a side-path, and the young girl, as though
deciding within herself that if she could not go shopping at once she
might as well get back for the skimming, retraced her steps.

The public road home from this point was easy but devious. By far
the nearest way was by getting over a fence, and crossing the private
grounds of a picturesque old country-house, whose chimneys were just
visible through the trees. As the house had been shut up for many
months, the girl decided to take the straight cut. She pushed her
way through the laurel bushes, sheltering her bonnet with the shawl
as an additional safeguard, scrambled over an inner boundary, went
along through more shrubberies, and stood ready to emerge upon the
open lawn. Before doing so she looked around in the wary manner of a
poacher. It was not the first time that she had broken fence in her
life; but somehow, and all of a sudden, she had felt herself too near
womanhood to indulge in such practices with freedom. However, she