meal for weeks past, and are quite tired of the sight, so you can have undisturbed possession.”

“And I,” said Darsie with a sigh, “have never in my life had enough! It will be quite an epoch to go on eating until I want to stop. That’s the worst of a large family, the dainties divide into such tiny shares!”

Ten minutes later the three girls had taken up their position in the kitchen garden in a spot which to the town-bred girl seemed ideal for comfort and beauty. The strawberry-bed ran along the base of an old brick wall on which the branches of peach-trees stretched out in the formal upward curves of great candelabra. An old apple-tree curved obligingly over the gravel path to form a protection from the sun, and it was the prettiest thing in the world to glance up through the branches with their clusters of tiny green apples, and see the patches of blue sky ahead. Darsie sat stretching out her hand to pluck one big strawberry after another, an expression of beatific contentment on her face.

“Yes—it’s scrumptious to live in the country—in summer! If it were always like this I’d want to stay for ever, but it must be dreadfully dull in winter, when everything is dead and still. I shouldn’t like it a bit.”

“No! No!” the Percival girls protested in chorus. “It’s beautiful always, and livelier than ever, for there’s the hunting. Hunting is just the most delightful sport! We hunt once a week always, and often twice—the most exciting runs. We are sorry, absolutely sorry when spring comes to stop us.”

“Oh, do you hunt!” Darsie was quite quelled by the thought of such splendour. In town it was rare even to see a girl on horseback; a hunt was a thing which you read about, but never expected to behold with your own eyes. The knowledge that her new friends actually participated in this lordly sport raised them to a pinnacle of importance. She munched strawberries in thoughtful silence for several moments before recovering enough spirit to enter another plea in favour of town.

“Well, anyway—if you don’t hunt, it must be dull. And lonely! Aren’t you scared to death walking along dark lanes without a single lamppost? I should live in terror of tramps and burglars, and never dare to stir out of the house after three o’clock.”

“No you wouldn’t, if you were accustomed to it. Our maids come home quite happily at ten o’clock at night, but if they go to a city they are nervous in the brightly lit streets. That’s curious, but it’s true. We used to leave 

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