ig-styes along of it,' he
announced, after long and careful reflection.

The cart-track brought them to a ploughed field, across which they plodded
laboriously, and in the end it landed them in the road that ran right
through the village. They met a good many inquisitive glances as they
hastened along, for the young ladies of Wootton Beeches very rarely
left their own grounds, and certainly never appeared in the village
except on their way to and from the station. They found their courage
slowly evaporating in the face of the curiosity they provoked, and there
was very little of it left by the time they arrived at the cottage with
the five pig-styes. Talking about good works in the junior playroom was
a very different matter, they found, from carrying them out in a strange
cottage, where numbers of strange children came out from dark corners
and gaped at them without saying a word of welcome. Babs and Angela
pushed forward their leader, and peered over her shoulder as she stood
hesitating on the threshold.

'Hello, mother!' shouted Bobby, hustling his brothers and sisters out of
the way and penetrating into the gloomy recesses of the cottage. 'Here be
three yoong ladies come to see ye.'

A harassed-looking woman came in from the back-yard, and started when
she saw the three faces in the doorway. 'It be proper good of ye, for
sure,' she said, casting nervous glances from her unexpected visitors to
a bed that was made up on the floor, near the empty grate; 'but my girl
Lilian Eliza, she be ill, she be, and ye'd best not come in, I reckon.'

She did not know the power of the Canon's address. At the sound of her
voice, the triumvirate, neither understanding nor heeding her warning,
stepped firmly into the room.

'I'm so sorry your daughter is ill,' began Barbara, fumbling hastily in
her pocket. 'Would three and sevenpence halfpenny be any good, do you
think? And I've got ten shillings more in my----'

Jean nudged her violently, but the woman's eyes had glistened at the
mention of money, and Babs emptied her purse impetuously on the table.

'Bless ye, missy, for sure!' said the woman, gratefully. 'Lilian Eliza,
she be goin' to the infirmary to-morrow, she be, and I can git her
Neighbour Bunce's spring-cart wi' that, I can.'

Her evident gratitude reproached Jean, and she forgot all about the
dangers of indiscriminate charity. She took the other two by the hand and
pulled them away to the door.

'We'll come back aga