im,
for civility's sake, and it would have been a great bore, when we
wanted to talk to each other and to look about us. We certainly didn't
need to talk to the fat boy. He looked most thankful when we were
settled in our places behind, and he didn't have to see us at all,
though his ears kept red all the way to Mossmoor, I could see, just from
shyness. I got to know him quite well afterwards, and his ears weren't
generally redder than other people's. He was a nice boy; his name was
Simon Wanderer; it didn't suit him, for he'd never been farther away
from his home at Mossmoor than six miles. I don't believe he has yet,
though he must be seventeen by now.

It was a lovely drive. I have been it lots of times since of course, and
I always like it; but that first time there was something extra about
it. It was all new to us, and then we did so enjoy being in the country
again, and there was a nice feeling as if we were having an adventure
too.

Part of the way is all through woods; then after that comes a heathy
bit, and then a clear bit of common, and then you go up for a while with
trees thick at one side of the road and at the other a beautiful sort of
stretching-to-the-sky view. _Then_ you turn sharp down a lane, and at a
corner where another lane--quite a short one--leads on to a heath
again, is the Farm.

We got out at the gate. There's no drive to the front of the house, and
this first time Mrs. Parsley wouldn't have thought it 'manners' to meet
us in the stable-yard. She was standing at the gate. I saw in a minute
she was nice. She had a pleasant face, not too smiley, and no make up
about it.

'I _am_ pleased to see you, ma'am,' she said, 'and Master Warwick too,
and I'm so glad it's a fine day. Real May weather, isn't it, ma'am?'

'Yes, indeed,' said mums. 'We couldn't see your pretty home to greater
advantage, Mrs. Parsley.'

Then Mrs. Parsley smiled more than she had done yet.

'I can't deny, ma'am, that it's a sweet spot,' she said, '_and_ a
healthy. It's coldish in winter, it's true, but then it's a cold that
you don't feel in the same piercing way as when it's damp. The air's
that bracing about here, ma'am.'

'So they tell me,' said mother. 'And that's just what we're looking
for.' Then she went on to tell about the whooping-cough, and though
Cousin Dorothea had written about it already, Mrs. Parsley seemed as
interested as could be. People like that--I mean people you can't call
gentlemen and ladie