This is merely personal," Daniel said, "and a sign that you are being
beaten, as usual. I was going to say that in a day of fuller knowledge
we shall be able to predict the effect of emotions with the same
certainty--"

"With which you now predict the effect of Eliza's diet. God forbid!
Anyhow, I shall be dead. Come on."

Daniel stood up obediently, for they had now reached the point where
they always rose and walked off side by side, in the silence of
amusement and indignation.

There was a rustling in the heather, and she heard no more of them. Then
the thud of approaching footsteps ran along the ground, and she sat up
to see Miriam with Zebedee.

"I went fishing," Miriam said, "and this is what I caught."

He smiled at Helen a little uncertainly. "I had some time to spare, and
I thought you wouldn't mind if I came up here. You used to let me."

"I've always wanted you to come back," she said with her disconcerting
frankness.

"You may sit down," Miriam said, "and go on telling us about your
childhood. Helen, we'd hardly said how d'you do when he began on that.
It's a sure sign of age."

"I am old."

"Oh," Helen murmured. "No." She dropped back into her bed. She could see
Zebedee's grey coat sleeve and the movements of his arm as he found and
filled his pipe, and by moving her head half an inch she saw his collar
and his lean cheek.

"Yes, old," he said, "and the reason I mentioned my unfortunate
childhood was to point a moral in content. When I was young I was made
to go to chapel twice on Sundays, three times counting Sunday-school,
and here I find you all wandering about the moor."

"I'd rather have had the chapel," Miriam said. "One could at least look
at people's hats."

"The hats in our particular Bethel were chiefly bonnets. Bonnets with
things in them that nodded, and generally black." He stared across the
moor. "I don't know that the memory of them is a thing to cherish."

Helen tried to do justice to the absent. "We were never told not to go.
We could do what we liked."

"Ah, but we weren't encouraged," Miriam chuckled. "You have to be
encouraged, don't you, Zebedee, before you go into places like that?"

"My father had other methods," he said grimly.

The silence tightened on his memories, and no one spoke until Miriam
said, almost gently, "Please tell us some more."

"The pews were a bright yellow, and looked sticky. The roof was painted
blue, with stars. There was a man in a black go