The stable bell would ring while they played in the plantation, and Uncle Edward or Pidgeon or Mrs. Fisher would come out and find her and take her back into the house. Ponto lifted up his head and howled after her as she went. At lunch Mary sat quivering between Mamma and Aunt Bella. The squeezing and dragging under her waist had begun again. There was a pattern of green ivy round the dinner plates and a pattern of goats round the silver napkin rings. She tried to fix her mind on the ivy and the goats instead of looking at Aunt Bella to see whether she were going to be ill. She _would_ be if you left mud in the hall on the black and white marble tiles. Or if you took Ponto off the chain and let him get into the house. Or if you spilled the gravy. Aunt Bella's face was much pinker and richer and more important than Mamma's face. She thought she wouldn't have minded quite so much if Aunt Bella had been white and brown and pretty, like Mamma. There--she had spilled the gravy. Little knots came in Aunt Bella's pink forehead. Her face loosened and swelled with a red flush; her mouth pouted and drew itself in again, pulled out of shape by something that darted up the side of her nose and made her blink. She thought: "I know--I know--I _know_ it's going to happen." It didn't. Aunt Bella only said, "You should look at your plate and spoon, dear." After lunch, when they were resting, you could feel naughtiness coming on. Then Pidgeon carried you on his back to the calf-shed; or Mrs. Fisher took you up into her bedroom to see her dress. In Mrs. Fisher's bedroom a smell of rotten apples oozed through the rosebud pattern on the walls. There were no doors inside, only places in the wall-paper that opened. Behind one of these places there was a cupboard where Mrs. Fisher kept her clothes. Sometimes she would take the lid off the big box covered with wall-paper and show you her Sunday bonnet. You sat on the bed, and she gave you peppermint balls to suck while she peeled off her black merino and squeezed herself into her black silk. You watched for the moment when the brooch with the black tomb and the weeping willow on it was undone and Mrs. Fisher's chin came out first by the open collar and Mrs. Fisher began to swell. When she stood up in her petticoat and bodice she was enormous; her breasts and hips and her great arms shook as she walked about the room. Mary was sorry when she said good-bye to Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella and Mrs. Fisher. For, always, as soon as she got home, Roddy rushed at her with the same questions. "Did you let Uncle Edward kiss you?" "Yes." "Did you talk to Pidgeon?" "Yes." "Did you kiss Mrs. Fisher?" "Yes." And Dank said, "Have they taken Ponto off the chain yet?" "No." "Well, then, that shows you what pigs they are." And when she saw Mark looking at her she felt small and silly and ashamed. II.