mother wit, old wives' tales, haphazard ways, moments of astonishing
daring, humour, and sentimentality--who shall deny that in these
respects every woman is nicer than any man?

Well, Betty Flanders, to begin with.

She had her hand upon the garden gate.

"The meat!" she exclaimed, striking the latch down.

She had forgotten the meat.

There was Rebecca at the window.

The bareness of Mrs. Pearce's front room was fully displayed at ten
o'clock at night when a powerful oil lamp stood on the middle of the
table. The harsh light fell on the garden; cut straight across the lawn;
lit up a child's bucket and a purple aster and reached the hedge. Mrs.
Flanders had left her sewing on the table. There were her large reels of
white cotton and her steel spectacles; her needle-case; her brown wool
wound round an old postcard. There were the bulrushes and the Strand
magazines; and the linoleum sandy from the boys' boots. A daddy-long-
legs shot from corner to corner and hit the lamp globe. The wind blew
straight dashes of rain across the window, which flashed silver as they
passed through the light. A single leaf tapped hurriedly, persistently,
upon the glass. There was a hurricane out at sea.

Archer could not sleep.

Mrs. Flanders stooped over him. "Think of the fairies," said Betty