The fierce little Kerry cows eyed the prospective owner peacefully, until Harold hit one of them with a slug from his air-gun, when they all began to career about the field, kicking up their heels and waving their tails.

"Don't do that, my boy," John said, crossly—for him very crossly.

A short cut to Galton lay across this field, which John, though even when they were quiet he never felt on really intimate terms with cows, had just decided to follow.

"Darling, that's such a cruel thing to do," Hilda expostulated. "The poor cow wasn't hurting you."

"It was looking at me," Harold protested.

"There is a legend about Francis of Assisi, Harold," his Uncle Laurence began, "which will interest you and at the same time...."

"Sorry to interrupt," John broke in, "but I must be getting along. This telegram.... I'll be back for tea."

He hurried off and when everybody called out to remind him of the short cut across the twenty-acre field he waved back cheerfully, as if he thought he was being wished a jolly walk; but he took the long way round.

It was a good five miles to Galton in the opposite direction from the road by which he had driven up that morning; but on this fine autumn afternoon, going down hill nearly all the way through a foreground of golden woods with prospects of blue distances beyond, John enjoyed the walk, and not less because even at the beginning of it he stopped once or twice to think how jolly it would be to see Miss Hamilton and Miss Merritt coming round the next bend in the road. Later on, he did not bother to include Miss Merritt, and finally he discovered his fancy so steadily fixed upon Miss Hamilton that he was forced to remind himself that Miss Hamilton in such a setting would demand a much higher standard of criticism than Miss Hamilton on the promenade deck of the Murmania. Nevertheless, John continued to think of her; and so pleasantly did her semblance walk beside him and so exceptionally mild was the afternoon for the season of the year that he must have strolled along the greater part of the way. At any rate, when he saw the tower of Galton church he was shocked to find that it was already four o'clock.

CHAPTER III

THE selection of presents for children is never easy, because in order to extract real pleasure from the purchase it is necessary to find something that excites the donor as much as it 

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