d then:
"Don't look out of the back windows, mind." (From the extreme corners
of the bedroom windows you could see a patch of the meadow whereon the
gipsy-vans settled.) These commands had been as regular as the Fair, and
always, of course, the children had promised obedience. Jeremy told his
conscience that if, this year, he gave his promise, he would certainly
keep it. He wondered, at the same time, whether he might not possibly
manage to be out of the house when the commands were issued. He formed
a habit of suddenly slipping out of the room when he saw his father's
mouth assuming the shape of a "command." He took the utmost care not to
be alone with his father.

But he need not have been alarmed. This year no command appeared.
Perhaps Mr. Cole thought that it was no longer necessary; it was obvious
that the children were not to go, and they were, after all, old enough
now to think for themselves. Or, perhaps, it was that Mr. Cole had other
things on his mind; he was changing curates just then, and a succession
of white-faced, soft-voiced, and loud-booted young men were appearing at
the Coles' hospitable table.

"Here's this tiresome Fair come round again," said Mrs. Cole.

"Wicked!" said Aunt Amy, with an envious shudder. "Satan finds work,
indeed, in this town."

"I don't suppose it's worse than anywhere else," said Mrs. Cole.

On the late afternoon of the day before the opening, Jeremy, on his way
to Mr. Somerset's, caught the tailend of Wombwell's Circus Procession
moving, in misty splendour, across the market.

He could see but little, although he stood on the pedestal of a
lamp-post; but Britannia, rocking high in the air, flashing her silver
sceptre in the evening air, and followed by two enormous and melancholy
elephants, caught his gaze. Strains of a band lingered about him. He
entered Mr. Somerset's in a frenzy of excitement, but he said nothing.
He felt that Mr. Somerset would laugh at him.

He returned to his home that night haunted by Britannia. He ate
Britannia for his supper; he had Britannia for his dreams; and he
greeted Rose as Britannia the next morning when she called him. Early
upon that day there were borne into the heart of the house strains of
the Fair. It was no use whatever to close the windows, lock the doors,
and read Divinity. The strains persisted, a heavenly murmur, rising at
moments into a muffled shriek or a jumbling shout, hanging about the
walls as a romantic echo, dying upo