stood a solid phalanx of jam pots; it
seemed as if a whole town might be supplied out of Mrs. Prettyman's
cupboard.

"'T is well thought of, me jam," the old woman said, grinning with
pleasure. "I be very careful in the preparing of 'en; gets a penny the
pound more for me jam than others, along of its being so fine."

Robinette was charmed to see that here Mrs. Prettyman had a reliable
source of income, however slender.

"How much do you reckon to get from it every year?" she asked.

"Going five pounds, dear: four pounds fifteen shillings and sixpence,
last autumn; and please the Lord there's a better crop this season, so
't will be the clear five pounds. Oh! I do be loving me plum tree like
a friend, I do."

They turned back into the sunshine again, that Robinette should admire
this wonderful tree-friend once more. She stood under its shadow with
great delight, as the Bible says, gazing up through the intricate
network of boughs and blossom to the cloudless blue above her.

"It's heavenly, Nurse, just heavenly!" she sighed as she came and sat
down beside the old woman again.

"Then there's me duck too, Missie! Lard, now I don't know how I'd be
without I had me duck. Duckie I calls 'er and Duckie she is; company
she is, too, to me mornin's, with her 'Quack, Quack,' under the
winder."

So the old woman prattled on, giving Robinette all the history of her
life, with its tiny joys and many struggles, till it seemed to the
listener that she had always known Mrs. Prettyman, the plum tree, and
her duck--known them and loved them, all three.

VI

MARK LAVENDAR

Hundreds of years ago the street of Stoke Revel village, if street it
could be called, and the tower of the ancient church, must have looked
very much the same as now.

On such a day, when the oak woods were budding, and the English birds
singing, and the spring sun was hot in a clear sky, a knight riding
down the steep lane would have taken the same turn to the left on his
way to the Manor. Were he a young man, he would probably have reined
up his horse for a moment, and looked, as Mark Lavendar did now, at
the blithe landscape before him. Only then the accessories would have
been so different: the great horse, somewhat tired by long hours of
riding, the armour that glinted in the sun, the casque pushed up to
let the fresh air play upon the rider's face; such a figure must have
often stood just at that turn where the lane wound up the little hi