in a vain endeavour to see her own back. "It's
perfectly all right."

"It would be, on a scarecrow." Isabel stuck her chin up. "Have
you been over to the Castle in that kit, Baby? Well, if Yvonne
won't give you some of her old clothes, you might ask the
kitchenmaid."

"The kitchenmaid has more money than I have," said Isabel
cheerfully. "Is it so very bad? It's clean anyway, I washed and
ironed it myself."

"It looks very nice and so do you," said Val. Isabel eyed him
with a softened glance: one could rely on Val to salve one's
wounded vanity, but, alas! Val did not know home-made from
tailor-made. Reluctantly she owned to herself that she had more
faith in Rowsley's judgment. "It seems rather short though," Val
added. "I suppose you will have to go into long frocks pretty
soon, won't you, and put your hair up?"

"Oh bother my hair and my dresses!" said Isabel with a great
sigh. "I will pin my hair up when I get some new clothes, but
how can I when I haven't any money and Jim hasn't any money and
neither of you have any money? Don't you see, idiot," this was
exclusively to Rowsley, "when I pin my hair up I shall turn into
a grown up lady? And then I shall have to wear proper clothes.
At present I'm only a little girl and it doesn't signify what I
wear. If any one will give me five pounds I'll pin my hair up
like a shot. Oh dear, I wonder what Yvonne would say if Jack
expected her to outfit herself for five pounds? I do wish some
one would leave me 10,000 pounds a year. Get up now, you lazy
beggar, come and help me lay the supper. It's Fanny's evening
out."

She pulled Rowsley to his feet and they went off together leaving
Val alone on the lawn: good comrades those two, and apparently
more of an age, in spite of the long gap between them, than
Rowsley and Val, who was the eldest by only eighteen months. And
Val sat on alone, while stains of coral and amber faded out of
the lavender sky, and a rack of sea clouds, which half an hour
ago had shone like fiery ripples, dwindled away into smoke--mist
--a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to
sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of
bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in
long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented
stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from
the moor.

Val lit a cigarette, a rare indulgence. If cigarettes grew on
gooseberry bushes Val w