ches in that packet," she said
reproachfully, "and the apples were beauties. I wish now I had eaten
more. I am sure I could have if I had tried."

Though there was plenty to do in the woods, that hour to tea-time seemed
somehow a very long one, and quite ten minutes before it was up they
were back at the farm to inquire if it was four o'clock yet.
Mrs. Henderson smiled knowingly as she saw them gathered at the door,
but she noticed that the eager faces were flushed and weary-looking, and
she asked them in to sit down and rest, promising she would not keep
them long.

As they were to have "a savour to their tea" they were to have the meal
in the house, instead of in the garden, and glad enough they were to
sink into the slippery, springless easy-chairs, which seemed to them
then the most luxurious seats the world could produce--at least they did
to Kitty and Dan, who took the only two; Betty got on the window-seat
and stretched herself out; Tony, a very weary little man indeed,
scrambled on to Kitty's lap; and all of them, too tired to talk much,
gazed with interest about the long, low room.

It was not beautiful, and they knew it well, yet the fascination of it
never failed. On the walls were hung large framed historical and
scriptural scenes, worked in cross-stitch with wool's of the brightest
hues, varied by a coloured print of a bird's-eye view of the battle of
Tel-el-Kebir, an almanac for the current year, and a large oleograph of
a young lady und a dog wreathed in roses that put every flower in the
garden to shame for size and brilliancy. But none of these could give a
tithe of the pleasure the worked ones did; there was such fascination in
counting how many stitches went to the forming of a nose, how many red
and how many white to the colouring of a cheek, or the shaping of the
hands, and fingers, and toes.

"I didn't know that Robert Bruce had six toes!" said Betty, very solemn
with the importance of her discovery, her eyes fastened on a
representation of that hero asleep in a cave, while a spider as large as
his head wove a web of cables across the opening. "Did you, Dan?"

"Didn't you?" answered Dan gravely. "Don't you know that in Scotland
they have an extra toe in case one should get frost-bitten and drop
off?"

"Of course I know it is very cold up there," said Betty, who was never
willing to admit ignorance of anything; "but supposing two got
frost-bitten and dropped off, what would they do the