y
day.

I went and found Alice, and told her what the lady had said, and when
she had finished crying we put away the bottle and said we would not try
to sell any more to people who came. And we did not tell the others--we
only said the lady did not buy any--but we went up on the Heath, and
some soldiers went by and there was a Punch-and-judy show, and when we
came back we were better.

The bottle got quite dusty where we had put it, and perhaps the dust of
ages would have laid thick and heavy on it, only a clergyman called when
we were all out. He was not our own clergyman--Mr Bristow is our own
clergyman, and we all love him, and we would not try to sell sherry
to people we like, and make two pounds a week out of them in our spare
time. It was another clergyman, just a stray one; and he asked Eliza if
the dear children would not like to come to his little Sunday school. We
always spend Sunday afternoons with Father. But as he had left the name
of his vicarage with Eliza, and asked her to tell us to come, we thought
we would go and call on him, just to explain about Sunday afternoons,
and we thought we might as well take the sherry with us.

'I won't go unless you all go too,' Alice said, 'and I won't do the
talking.'

Dora said she thought we had much better not go; but we said 'Rot!' and
it ended in her coming with us, and I am glad she did.

Oswald said he would do the talking if the others liked, and he learned
up what to say from the printed papers.

We went to the Vicarage early on Saturday afternoon, and rang at the
bell. It is a new red house with no trees in the garden, only very
yellow mould and gravel. It was all very neat and dry. Just before we
rang the bell we heard some one inside call 'Jane! Jane!' and we thought
we would not be Jane for anything. It was the sound of the voice that
called that made us sorry for her.

The door was opened by a very neat servant in black, with a white apron;
we saw her tying the strings as she came along the hall, through the
different-coloured glass in the door. Her face was red, and I think she
was Jane.

We asked if we could see Mr Mallow.

The servant said Mr Mallow was very busy with his sermon just then, but
she would see.

But Oswald said, 'It's all right. He asked us to come.'

So she let us all in and shut the front door, and showed us into a very
tidy room with a bookcase full of a lot of books covered in black cotton
with white labels, and some du