ley didn't mind her saying that, I could see.

'True, ma'am, that's just as Mr. Joyce puts it,' she said.

Then she explained to me exactly how I should go. I was to make a round,
coming back by the high road. In this way I should pass up the village,
and see the post office, which was also a telegraph office, and the
doctor's house. It's always a good thing in a new place to see all you
can.

'And some little distance behind the church, so to say,' added Mrs.
Parsley, 'standing on rather high ground, you'll see the Convalescent
Home, Master Jack. We're quite proud of it now, though at the beginning
some folk were silly enough to think it'd bring infections and illnesses
to the place. But them as has charge of it know better than that; every
care's taken. And there's some sweet young ladies who come down turn
about, one with another, to help with the children. It's a pretty sight,
I can tell you, to see the poor dears picking up as they do here.
They'll get quite rosy before they go, some of them, and they poor
peakit-like faces they come with.'

'Peakit-like' means pinched and miserable-looking. It is a north country
expression, mums says, for Mrs. Parsley belonged to the north when she
was young.

Well, off I set. I hadn't any adventures--that was for afterwards. I
found my way quite well, and I enjoyed the walk very much. The church
was rather queer. It was very old; there were strange tablets on the
walls and monuments in the corners, and part of the pavement was
gravestones--the side parts, not the middle. But it was new too. There
weren't any pews, and it was all open and airy. But still it had the
feeling of being very old. I don't know much about architecture--it's
one of the things I mean to learn. I know pews are all wrong, still
they're rather fun. At one church near Furzely, where we sometimes go in
wet weather, there are some square ones with curtains all round, and the
two biggest pews have even fireplaces in them--they're exactly like tiny
rooms. I daresay there were pews like that once in Fewforest church, for
it certainly is very old.

I stood in front of the chancel some time looking at the high painted
window behind the altar; it was very old. I could see it by the cracks
here and there where you could tell it had been mended. I couldn't help
thinking what lots and lots of people must have looked at that
window--at those very figures in it and the patterns round the
edge--since it was first put