"Thanks, no!" replied Ted curtly, for he had noticed Aura's confidence with Ned, and had--he scarcely had time to think why--resented it; "but, I think, Cruttenden, that if we do avail ourselves of Mr. Smith's kindly offered hospitality, we must start at dawn, picking up our bicycles by the way." "As you please, Ted," replied Ned carelessly. "But thanks all the same, Martha. I hope there will be no more miracles in church." "Thank _you_, sir," retorted Martha cheerfully, "but I don't 'old with church nor yet with chapel neither. As I keep tellin' of Adam, they makes people think too much of their sins. An' 'is is but what we cooks call second stock at that, sir; for takin' 'im, fine an' wet, Adam do 'is work like a real Briton--yes! he really do----" With which testimonial to Adam's worth she bobbed another curtsey, and was off for her panacea for all ills, a "spin on her bike." "I suppose," said Ted after a pause, in a somewhat awed voice, "that Adam is Martha's husband." Aura bubbled over with quick mirth. "Martha's husband! Oh dear, no! Why, she is always at me 'not to incline to no man, no; not if his 'air be 'ung round with gold'; and just think of Adam's little cropped head!" Her laugh was infectious. "And so Martha shares the--the family dislike to gold," suggested Ned slyly. Mr. Sylvanus Smith rose to the fly at once. "We do not dislike it, sir; gold has undoubtedly its appointed place in the world, but it happens to be in its wrong place. So I disregard it, and pay all my bills by cheque." "Martha makes out the lists for the Army and Navy, you know," explained Aura quickly. "It's rather fun unpacking the boxes when they come." "There is no doubt," continued Mr. Smith, in a tone of voice which suggested an effort to be strictly original, "that as now administered, money is the root of all evil. Our hoarded millions instead of, as they should, bringing equality--comfortable, contented equality--to the world, separate man from his fellow man by a purely artificial distinction; they bring about class antagonism, and are a premium on inept idleness." "Hear, hear!" said Ted. "I quite agree with you, sir. If these millions were equitably divided----" "They would be a premium on idle ineptitude instead," laughed Ned lightly. "If you gave a loafer the same wage as a working man, I for one would loaf. It is the better part. If any one were to offer me a golden sovereign at the present moment, Miss Aura----" She arrested the teapot in the middle of pouring out his second cup, and glanced up at him in smiling horror. "And I never gave back the one in Cockatua's bread and milk tin! Dear me, what should I have done if you had gone away and left it? I'll remember it after tea." But after tea found them still laughing, still talking, still sitting silent awhile listening to the song of a thrush which, as the day drew down to dusk, sat on the bent branch of the old yew to sing as surely never thrush sang before.