for that--one of those many dumb poets who have no desire to flaunt their emotions in cold print.

The four came down the hill, Mollie and Wilberforce still leading, round a whitewashed farmhouse, along a strip of wet road whereon a few bowler-hatted chawbacons strolled arm-in-arm with their red-cheeked, silent Dollies, under leafless elm branches, into the main--and only--street of Key Hatch.

England's Sabbath brooded obviously over stone cottages, picturesquely inefficient, flower-pots blocking their tiny windows, doors closed. Already, here and there behind the flower-pots, an extravagant light twinkled. Half-way down the street, its bow-windows inhospitably blinded, stood the Bull, relic of posting-days, whose rusty signboard had so far failed to attract the motorist. At street-end, dark against the cold cloud-banks of declining day, loomed the square tower of Key Hatch Church.

Mollie and Wilberforce waited at the side door of the inn till the others joined them.

"You won't mind having tea in my sitting-room. I'm afraid there isn't a fire anywhere else," said Cavendish; and led his three guests down a narrow corridor--rigid fish in glass cases and an iron hatstand its only decorations--into a parlor where firelight danced invitingly.

Wilberforce lit the lamp, revealing a five-legged tea-table set for two, a hard sofa, three antimacassared chairs, a stuffed barn-owl between Britannia-ware candlesticks on the mantelpiece, and the usual litter of photographs in sea-shell frames without which no English inn considers itself furnished.

Cavendish jerked the bell-tassel; Mrs. Wiggins, a pleasant-featured young woman already attired for church-going, bustled in with the brown teapot; nearly courtesied to Aliette; bustled out again, and reappeared with the extra utensils.

"You'll pour out for us, won't you, Mrs. Brunton?" asked the host.

"If you like." Aliette spoke in her usual deliberate way. But now, for the first time, she felt self-conscious. Was her hat on straight? Had she remembered to powder her nose before starting?

Pouring tea, handing cups, busied with the most ordinary social duties, there swept over her mind the most extraordinary fantasies. And quite suddenly she wanted to take off her hat!

"But this is ridiculous," she said to herself. "I _can't_ take off my hat." Nevertheless she wanted to. She must! 

 Prev. P 27/403 next