s if nothing had happened.

"Oh, I know the answer to that!" exclaimed John scornfully. "I've
known that since I was a baby!"

"Well then, why do you require me to repeat the question so many
times?" very naturally observed Miss Thompson. "Do give me a sensible
answer, and then I can pass on to something that you do not know so
well."

"Oh, of course, it was about all his wives having their heads cut off--"

"Not all!" interrupted Betty. "Just let me say them! Catherine of
Arragon was divorced, Anne Boleyn had--"

"Stop!" cried Miss Thompson. "You are both wrong."

"No! Really I am sure it's right!" exclaimed Betty. "Isn't it, Madge?
You know you saw the place where her head was chopped off that time you
went to London with Aunt Mabel. Nobody was allowed to walk on it, and
there were railings all round; and the policeman said one night in the
year her ghost--"

"Really this has nothing at all to do with your lesson," said Miss
Thompson, resolutely cutting short what threatened to be a very long
story. "I never doubted that Anne Boleyn was beheaded," she continued.
"Only, as it happens, my question has nothing to do with Henry the
Eighth's wives. Other events of much greater importance happened
during his reign, though you seem to have forgotten them. The
Reformation, for instance."

"Oh, you meant that sort of thing, did you?" said John, every spark of
interest dying out of his voice. It might be possible to remember a
few facts about axes and blocks, but church councils and acts of
parliament he felt to be altogether beneath his notice. So he simply
gave up even the pretence of attending, and began to stare out of the
window at the gardener mowing the lawn. "Once, twice, three times," he
counted, in a loud whisper, as the man passed the window with the
mowing-machine.

"Draw down the blind, John," said Miss Thompson.

There was a chorus of reproaches from all the children. They
particularly disliked this punishment, which was only inflicted on rare
occasions when they had been unusually inattentive.

"Draw down the blind at once," repeated Miss Thompson.

"I always feel so gloomy when the blind is down," lamented Madge in a
very mournful tone. "I know I can't do my lessons if the sun is all
shut out."

"My dear, they couldn't have been done worse this morning if you had
been shut up in the dark," replied Miss Thompson, trying to close the
discussion by again taking up the history-book.