see I'm goin' to mawy Jane. It'll keep me vewy busy."

_Chapter III: Explorers of the Dawn_

I

Fast on the winged heels of Love came our discovery of the Dawn. Of course
we had known all along that there was a sunrise--a mechanical sort of
affair that started things going like clockwork. But Dawn was a bird of
another feather.

If we had had our parents with us they would have, in all likelihood,
unfolded the mystery of it in some bedtime visit; but Mrs. Handsomebody, if
she ever thought about the Dawn at all, probably looked on it with
suspicion, and some disfavour, as a weak, feeble thing--a nebulous period
fit neither for honest folk nor cutthroats.

So it came about that we heard of it from our good friend the Bishop. Mrs.
Handsomebody had given a grudging permission for us to take tea with him.
In hot weather her voice and eyes always seemed frostier than usual. The
closely shut windows and drawn blinds made the house a prison, and the
glare of the planked back yard was even more intolerable. Therefore, when
Rawlins, the Bishop's butler, told us that we were to have tea in the
garden, it was hard for us to remember Mrs. Handsomebody's injunction to
walk sedately and to bear in mind that our host was a bishop.

But, as we crossed the cool lawn, our spirits, which had drooped all day,
like flags at half-mast, rose, and fluttered in the summer breeze, and we
could not resist a caper or two as we approached the tea-table.

The Bishop did not even see us. His fine grave face was buried in a book he
had on his knees, and his gaitered legs were bent so that he toed in.

When we drew up before him, Angel and I in stiff Eton collars and The
Seraph fresh as a daisy, in a clean white sailor blouse, he raised his eyes
and gave us a vague smile, and a wave of the hand toward three low wicker
chairs. We were not a bit abashed by this reception, for we knew the
Bishop's ways, and it was joy enough that we were safe in his garden
staring up at the blue sky through flickering leaves, and listening to the
splash of the little fountain that lived in the middle of the cool grass
plot.

Surely, I thought, there never was such another garden--never another with
such a rosy red brick wall, half-hidden by hollyhocks and larkspur--such
springy, tender grass--such a great guardian Cathedral, that towered above
and threw its deep beneficent shade! Here the timorous Cathedral pigeons
strutted unafraid, and dipped their heads