street, and shrouded under a squirrel mantle of many pounds weight.

Barely in time was the convoy when at last the exhausted lady was
helped over the stone stile that led to the churchyard. Highly
picturesque was the grey structure outside, but within modernism had
not done much; the chancel was feebly fitted after the ideas of the
"fifties," but the faded woodwork of the nave was intact, and
Magdalen still had to sit in the grim pew of her predecessors.

The girls' looks at each other might have suited the entrance to a
condemned cell, and the pulpit towered above them with a faded green
cushion, that seemed in danger of tumbling down over their heads.

The service was a plain one, but reverent and careful; the music had
a considerable element of harmonium mixed with schoolchild voices,
and the sermon from an elderly man was a good one; but when the move
to go out was made, and the young ones were beyond ear-shot of their
elders, the exclamations were, "Well, I never thought to have gone
back to Georgian era."

"Exactly the element of our maiden aunt."

"And nobody to be seen."

"Naggie, why do they shut one up in boxes?"

"Just to daunt Flapsy's roving eye, Tickle, my dear."

"Don't, Polly. There was nobody to be seen if we hadn't been in a
box. Of course no one comes there but stately old farmers and their