It was Saturday, and a pouring wet afternoon. Our visit was drawing to an end; on the following Wednesday we should bid the Sankers good-bye. Captain Sanker, always trying to find out ways of making folk happy, had devised a day of pleasure for the last day of our stay, Tuesday. We were to go to Malvern; a whole lot of us: ourselves, and the Teals, and the Squire, and Mrs. Todhetley, and take our dinner on the hill. It was so settled; and the arrangements were planned and made. But this was yet only Saturday. We dined at twelve: whether for any one's convenience or that the servants made a mistake in an hour, I don't remember. It happened to be a saint's day, so the boys had no school; and, being wet, came home after morning service in the cathedral. After a jolly dinner of peas and bacon and pancakes, we looked at the skies for a bit, and then (all but Fred and Hetta) went up to the turret-room. Dan said the rain had come to spite us; for the whole school had meant to race to Berwick's Bridge after afternoon service and hold a mock review in the fields there. It was coming down in torrents, peppering the roof and the windows. Mrs. Sanker sat in the middle of the old beam, mending one of Toby's shirts, "Lalla Rookh" open on her knee, out of which she was singing softly; the floor was strewed with patches, and scissors, and tapes, and the combs were out of one side of her hair. "Read it out loud to us, mamma," cried King. "I can't spare time to read, King," she said. "Look here"--holding out the work, all rags and tatters. "If I don't mend this, Toby won't have a shirt to put on to-morrow." "I shan't mind about that," said Toby. "Oh, but, dear, I don't think you could go without a shirt. Has any one seen my cotton?" "Then say something over to us that you know, mamma," returned King, as Toby found the cotton. "Very well. I can do that and work too. Sit down, all of you." We sat down, King and Toby on the floor before her, the rest of on the beam on either side her. Dan, who did not care for poetry, got some Brazil nuts out of his pocket and cracked them while he listened. Mrs. Sanker might as well have read "Lalla Rookh." She began to recite "The Friar of Orders Grey." But what with gazing up at the sky through the rain to give it due emphasis, and shaking her head at pathetic parts, the sewing did not get on. She had finished the verse-- "Weep no more, lady, weep no more, Thy sorrow is in vain; For violets plucked, the sweetest showers Will ne'er make grow again," when King surprised us by bursting into tears. But as Mrs. Sanker took no notice, I supposed it was nothing unusual. "You young donkey!" cried Dan, when the poem was finished. "You'll never be a man, King." "It is such a nice verse, Dan," replied young King, meekly. "I whisper it over sometimes to myself in bed. Mamma, won't you say the 'Barber's Ghost'? Johnny Ludlow would like to hear that, I know."