up there. Lots of children as little as me,
who grew up to be men and women, and then got old and died. Isn't it
queer to think how men and women _must_ die, and that bits of glass that
anybody could break with a touch can last on for hundreds of years? I
daresay some of the children I was thinking of, the long long ago ones,
kept on looking at that window every Sunday, and saints' days too--for
people long ago went much oftener to church on saints' days, you
know,--all through their lives; for before there were railways, or even
coaches, and travelling cost so dear, lots of country people never went
farther away than a few miles from their own village at all. It is
strange to think of. I thought to myself I'd like to show Anne the
church. She'd understand all these feelings it gave me--perhaps she'd
make poetry about it. She does make poetry sometimes. I was sure she'd
like the church.

But I was afraid of being late for mother, or making her fidgety that I
was _going_ to be late, so I turned to go.

Just as I was leaving the church, I saw that there was some one there
beside myself. I hadn't noticed her before, but she must have been there
all the time. It was a lady. She had been kneeling, but she got up and
passed out quickly. I had only time to catch a very little glimpse of
her face, but even in that tiny glimpse I felt as if I had seen it
before. But I couldn't think where. She didn't see me, I was a little
in shadow, and she looked eager and hurried, as if she had plenty to do,
and had only run in to say her prayers for a minute.

Where had I seen that rather frowning, eager look in a face before? It
did bother me so, but I _couldn't_ remember.

That was a tiny bit of an adventure, after all. I shouldn't have said I
hadn't any at all that day.

[Illustration: 'I just stood still ... and looked well round at the view
and everything.' c. ix. p. 130.]

I walked home through the village--that end of it, that's to say, the
south end--past the doctor's house, with a big plate on the door, 'Dr.
Hepland,' and the one or two everything shops (don't you _love_
'everything' shops? I do. I stood at the door of one of them, to sniff
the jolly mixty-maxty, regular country shop smell), and the post office.
And then I felt I knew the place pretty tidily for a beginning. There
was lots of time. I'd seen what o'clock it was at the church, so I
strolled along comfortably. Some of the people stared at me a bit. It
was rathe