ast."

"What's that?"

"Miss Unity," said David with decision.

"Should you call her very ugly?" inquired Ambrose.

"Yes, of course, quite hideous," replied Nancy indistinctly, with her
paint-brush in her mouth.

"Well, I'm not quite sure," said Pennie; "once I saw her eyes look quite
nice, as if they had a light shining at the back of them."

"Like that face Andrew made for us out of a hollow pumpkin, with a
candle inside?" suggested Nancy.

"You're always so stupid, Nancy!" said Ambrose scornfully. "I know what
Pennie means about Miss Unity; _I've_ seen her eyes look nice too.
Don't you remember, too, how kind she was when Dickie was so rude to
her? I've never been so afraid of her since that."

The next day the party started for Nearminster in the wagonette, David
sitting in front with his feet resting comfortably on his own little
trunk. Andrew, who drove, allowed him to hold the whip sometimes, and
the end of the reins--so it was quite easy to fancy himself a coachman;
but this delightful position did not make him forget other things.
Beckoning to Nancy, who stood with the rest on the rectory steps, he
lifted a solemn finger.

"Remember!" he said.

Nancy nodded, the wagonette drove away followed by wavings, and
good-byes, and shrieking messages from the children, and was soon out of
sight.

"That was like Charles the First," said Pennie; "don't you remember just
before they cut off his head--"

"Oh, don't!" said Nancy; "pray, don't talk about Charles the First out
of lesson time."

CHAPTER FIVE.

MISS UNITY.

It was a lonely life which Miss Unity Cheffins lived at Nearminster, but
she had become so used to it that it did not occur to her to wish for
any other. Far far in the distance she could remember a time when
everything had not been so quiet and still round her--when she was one
of a group of children who had made the old house in the Close echo with
their little hurrying footsteps and laughing voices. One by one those
voices had become silent and the footsteps had hastened away, and Miss
Unity was left alone to fill the empty rooms as she best might with the
memories of the past. That was long long ago, and now her days were all
just alike, as formal and even as the trimly-kept Close outside her
door. And she liked them to be so; any variety or change would have
been irksome to her. She liked to know that exactly as eight o'clock
sounded from the cathedral Bridget would bring