during his absence, and Mr.
Lambkin seemed to have no objection. Other people's gardens always
seemed to William to be more attractive than his own--especially when
he had no right of entry into them.

There was quite an excitement in the neighbourhood when the empty
house was let. It was rumoured that the newcomer was a Personage. She
was the President of the Society of Ancient Souls. The Society of
Ancient Souls was a society of people who remembered their previous
existence. The memory usually came in a flash. For instance, you might
remember in a flash when you were looking at a box of matches that you
had been Guy Fawkes. Or you might look at a cow and remember in a
flash that you had been Nebuchadnezzar. Then you joined the Society of
Ancient Souls, and paid a large subscription, and attended meetings
at the house of its President in costume. And the President was coming
to live next door to William. By a curious coincidence her name was
Gregoria--Miss Gregoria Mush. William awaited her coming with anxiety.
He had discovered that one's next-door neighbours make a great
difference to one's life. They may be agreeable and not object to
mouth organs and whistling and occasional stone-throwing, or they may
not. They sometimes--the worst kind--go to the length of writing notes
to one's father about one, and then, of course, the only course left
to one is one of Revenge. But William hoped great things from Miss
Gregoria Mush. There was a friendly sound about the name. On the
evening of her arrival he climbed up on the roller and gazed wistfully
over the fence at the territory that had once been his, but from which
he was now debarred. He felt like Moses surveying the Promised Land.

Miss Gregoria Mush was walking in the garden. William watched her with
bated breath. She was very long, and very thin, and very angular, and
she was reading poetry out loud to herself as she trailed about in her
long draperies.

"'Oh, moon of my delight....'" she declaimed, then her eye met
William's. The eyes beneath her pince-nez were like little gimlets.

"How dare you stare at me, you rude boy?" she said.

William gasped.

[Illustration: "HOW DARE YOU STARE AT ME, YOU RUDE BOY?" SHE SAID.]

"I shall write to your father," she said fiercely, and then proceeded
still ferociously, "'... that knows no wane.'"

"Crumbs!" murmured William, descending slowly from his perch.

She did write to his father, and that note was the first of