ve and stood aloof. They were old enough to see
that being good was all very well, but after all you had to get the boy
home somehow.

When they said this, as agreeably as they could, Denny said--

'It's all right--someone will give me a lift.'

'You think everything in the world can be put right with a lift,' Dicky
said, and he did not speak lovingly.

'So it can,' said Denny, 'when it's your feet. I shall easily get a lift
home.'

'Not here you won't,' said Alice. 'No one goes down this road; but the
high road's just round the corner, where you see the telegraph wires.'

Dickie and Oswald made a sedan chair and carried Denny to the high road,
and we sat down in a ditch to wait. For a long time nothing went by
but a brewer's dray. We hailed it, of course, but the man was so sound
asleep that our hails were vain, and none of us thought soon enough
about springing like a flash to the horses' heads, though we all thought
of it directly the dray was out of sight.

So we had to keep on sitting there by the dusty road, and more than one
pilgrim was heard to say it wished we had never come. Oswald was not one
of those who uttered this useless wish.

At last, just when despair was beginning to eat into the vital parts of
even Oswald, there was a quick tap-tapping of horses' feet on the road,
and a dogcart came in sight with a lady in it all alone.

We hailed her like the desperate shipwrecked mariners in the long-boat
hail the passing sail.

She pulled up. She was not a very old lady--twenty-five we found out
afterwards her age was--and she looked jolly.

'Well,' she said, 'what's the matter?'

'It's this poor little boy,' Dora said, pointing to the Dentist, who had
gone to sleep in the dry ditch, with his mouth open as usual. 'His feet
hurt him so, and will you give him a lift?'

'But why are you all rigged out like this?' asked the lady, looking at
our cockle-shells and sandals and things. We told her.

'And how has he hurt his feet?' she asked. And we told her that.

She looked very kind. 'Poor little chap,' she said. 'Where do you want
to go?'

We told her that too. We had no concealments from this lady.

'Well,' she said, 'I have to go on to--what is its name?'

'Canterbury,' said H. O.

'Well, yes, Canterbury,' she said; 'it's only about half a mile. I'll
take the poor little pilgrim--and, yes, the three girls. You boys
must walk. Then we'll have tea and see the sights, and I'll drive you
home--at