e! Let's have a game of `Roadside cribbage.'
Bags I the left side! Now then, Dreda, I choose you first. Hereward
can take Rowena. Buck up! We have got to win this time."

Etheldreda shot a glance of gratitude from the grey eyes which were such
eloquent exponents of her thoughts. To be so championed by Gurth was
worth far more than the temporary suffering inflicted by Rowena's sharp
tongue, and she set herself valiantly to be worthy of his choice.
"Roadside cribbage" was a game patronised for years by the Saxon family
on their railway journeys, and consisted merely in dividing forces,
staring steadily out of opposite windows, and scoring for the various
objects perceived, according to a quaint but well understood method.
Thus, a bridge over a river counted as five marks; a quarry, ten; a
windmill, twenty; a fire, fifty; a motor car, minus one; while the
ubiquitous bicycle was worth only three per dozen. These, and other
objects too numerous to repeat, mounted but slowly towards the grand
total of a hundred, but there remained one--just one rare chance of
winning success at a stroke, for the competitor who had the luck to spy
a cat looking out of a window might cry, "Game!" on the instant, even if
he had not so far scored a single point. It can easily be understood
that the best chances of spotting this valuable spectacle came as the
train slackened steam before entering a station. Then, as one regarded
the backs of dreary tenement houses, it really seemed inevitable that
some household cat should wish to take the air, or to regard the world
from the vantage of dusty, unwashed sills! Inevitable, yet with the
perversity of cat nature, it was extraordinary how seldom this all-to-
be-desired vision burst upon the view. "It's not fair!" Rowena cried.
"You have all the poor houses on your side, and poor houses have always
more cats than rich ones. A cat for every floor. We ought to change
sides between every station, like cricket!"

"Fudge! You've got the open country. Look out for pigs and quarries...
We've had no luck with cats for the last three journeys. On the whole,
I think yours is the best side."

"Why didn't you choose it yourself, then?"

"Charity!" answered Gurth, shortly, with a twinkling glance at his
partner, who happened to be at the same time his favourite sister,
despite her many and obvious faults. If he had been asked to describe
Dreda's character, he would have said in his easy schoolbo