"Why, so I did! We would tiptoe all alone up to the tree, and if, under its wide branches, we made a wish, we thought it was sure to come true. There was another curious old game of finding out how many years we were to live, by a ball. We would bounce it upon the hard ground, and catching it again and again in our hands, would chant all the while: 'Ball-ee, ball-ee, tell me true, How many years I've got to go through, One, two, three, four,--' If that had proved true, I shouldn't be here to-day to tell of it, for I was never very skillful with the ball, and could only catch it ten or fifteen times at the most." Mrs. Pitt laughed. "There is so much of ancient folk-lore here in Warwickshire," she went on. "I remember that the old country people always crossed themselves or said some charm for a protection, when one lone magpie flew over their heads. That meant bad luck, for the verses said: 'For one magpie means sorrow, Two, mirth, Three, a wedding, And four, a birth.' Why, what is it, Barbara?" Barbara had jumped to her feet, and was wildly waving her arms about her head. "It's only a bee," she said, rather ashamed. "I don't like them quite so near." It was delightful to ride along on this "rare day in June," through the fair county of Warwickshire,--the "Heart of England." If they were just a bit uncomfortably warm on the hill-top where the sun beat down upon the fields and open road, they were soon again in the beautiful woodland, where the cool air refreshed them, or passing through the street of some remote village, shaded by giant elms. In each little hamlet, as well as the row of peaceful thatched cottages, with smoke curling upwards from their chimneys, there was the ancient vine-covered church, with perhaps a Norman tower, where the rooks found a home, and the gray old rectory close at hand. When Betty asked if it was in a church "like this" that Mrs. Pitt's father preached, and if her former home resembled the particular rectory they then chanced to be passing, Mrs. Pitt replied, "Yes, my home was somewhat like this one. All English country churches and rectories look very much alike,--that is, almost all are vine-covered, and very old and quaint--yet, I think each has its own very distinct individuality, too." Mrs. Pitt, of course, wanted some tea, so about four o'clock they stopped at a clean little cottage, near a stretch of woodland. Mrs. Pitt herself dismounted and stepped up to the door, which stood hospitably open. A little flaxen-haired child ran out curiously at the sound of the knock, and then, frightened, scampered away to call her mother. That good woman, in her neat black dress and stiffly-starched white apron, at once understood the situation. "You just seat yourselves there under the trees," she ordered them, "and I'll bring right out a shive off a loaf of bread, and a tot o' tea for each of you."