about twenty yards, with a thick joining band of yew between them. They
were so massive that very little light could get into the front windows
or the doorway; but, as Mr. Pescod said, "anyone can have light, few
yew hedges like that in the world."

Mrs. Pescod was a comfortable, smiling woman whose one idea was that
everyone must either be hungry or in need of feeding up. All of the
children in turn she looked at anxiously, saying that she was sure that
they had not had enough to eat. As a matter of fact, they had not
perhaps eaten as much as they would have done at Chiswick, and they
had, of course, worked harder; but they were all very well, and said
so. But it made no difference to Mrs. Pescod.

"Ah, my dear," she said to Janet, "you're pale. I shouldn't like you to
go back to your ma looking like that. No, while you're here you must
have three good meals. A good tea, and a good supper, and a good
breakfast. I wish you'd stay longer, and let me have a real go at you;
but if you can't, you can't, and there's an end of it."

Mrs. Pescod's notion of a good tea was terrific. Eggs for everyone to
begin with (to Gregory's great pleasure, for an egg with his tea was
almost his favourite treat). Freshly baked hot cakes soaking in butter.
Hot toast. Three kinds of jam. Bread and butter. Watercress. Mustard
and cress. This was at five o'clock, and as supper was at half-past
eight, Janet urged the others to explore as much as possible, or they
would have no appetite, and then Mrs. Pescod would be miserable.

It was a delightful farm. There was everything that one wants in a
farm,--a pond with ducks; a haystack half cut, so that one might jump
about on it; straw ricks on stone posts; cowsheds smelling so warm and
friendly, with swallows darting in and out of the doorway to their
nests in the roof; stables with gentle horses who ate the green stuff
you gave them without biting you; guinea-pigs, the property of Master
Walter Pescod, who was a weekly boarder at Cirencester; fantail
pigeons; bantams; ferrets, very frightening to everyone but Kink, who
knew just how to hold them; and a turnip-slicer, which Gregory turned
for some time, munching turnip all the while.

Mrs. Pescod led the girls round with her on an egg-hunt, which is
always one of the most interesting expeditions in life; and Mr. Pescod,
as the evening drew on, allowed the boys to accompany him with his gun
to get a rabbit or two under the hedge, and he permitted