'But the plate's empty,' said Martha, flushed and determined.

'I've had no finger in the emptying of it. More must be fetched.' Other
voices joined in, and Mrs. Marston was heard to murmur, 'Unpleasant.'

Edward was oblivious to it all.

'Shall you,' he asked earnestly, 'like me to come to the Spinney?'

'Ah, I shall that!' said Hazel, who already felt an aura of protection
about him. 'It'll be so safe--like when I was little, and was used to
pick daisies round grandad.'

Edward knew more definitely than before the relation in which he wished
to stand towards Hazel. It was not that of grandad.

Any reply he might have made was drowned by the uproar that broke forth
at the cry, 'She's hidden 'em! Look in the kitchen!'

Martha's cousin--in his spare time policeman of a distant village--felt
that if Martha was detected in fraud it would not look well, and
therefore put his sinewy person in the kitchen doorway. Edward seized
the moment, when there was a hush of surprise, to say grace, during
which the invincible voice murmured:

'I've not received tartlets. I'm not thankful.'

'Mother,' Edward said, when the last unruly guest had disappeared in
the wild April night, and Hazel's vivid presence and violet fragrance