As before, that visit was composed of long sunny days in the garden, endless tennis sets, or cricket parties at the Hall, and always in the evening, after dinner, there was Mrs. Marsh's wonderful playing in the drawing-room. Tea-time was the favourite hour with John. He always felt glad when he saw the maid, changed from her pink and white dress for the morning into official black and white, with lace cap, bearing the folding table which she set under the walnut tree. Then hammock chairs appeared; after that a white tea cloth, and the rattle of china and the glint of the silver sugar basin--how he knew the design!--two folding lids, with soft white sugar like flour inside--jampot and teaspoons and cake knives. Then--after what seemed a long time--the glad tinkle of the tea-bell, with Mrs. Marsh crossing to the table, her first appearance for the afternoon. Mr. Marsh would follow a few minutes late, and sometimes Teddie would rouse him in the study, where he dozed after lunch when the weather was hot. Generally there were a couple of guests to make a tennis four, either the solicitor's daughter, or the governess from the Hall, who played the best tennis of any lady in the county and was always in danger of losing her situation because visitors at the Hall would always mistake her for the mistress. It was a merry tea-time. Mr. Marsh was not always quite awake, and he had, at this function, quite a gift for Spoonerisms. "Pass me the plake, kease," he would say. "Certainly, sad," would respond Teddie. After tea, John's father and Mr. Marsh usually disappeared. On two occasions they were challenged to a tennis double and to the amazement of exuberant youth, won. But generally they disappeared at the end of the garden. "They've gone to talk roses again," commented Mrs. Marsh. "The governor's mouth's watering with the names Mr. Dean's given him--he'll go about talking Turkish to the gardener for the next two months," said Teddie. Dressing for dinner, too, was like a prelude to the delight of the meal and the music to follow. John's dress shirt and jacket and trousers lay neatly spread out on the bed. There was, at six-thirty prompt, the copper jug, filled with hot water, with its initialled felt cover; and the country bathroom! John always wanted to sing in his. There was the low music of the running water, the lucid green shimmer, reflected on the porcelain sides, sending waves of rippling light over the ceiling. Then, with gleaming shirt front and glossy hair, an immaculate boy would descend to the drawing room and wait with the others for the dinner gong. John soon grew to love those country sounds just before dinner; through the windows glowed long stretches of wooded country; often a thrush marked even song, and there was the retiring twitter of the birds. A cow driven byre-wards lowed in the valley, and the cawing of rooks in the Hall drive came on eddyings of the evening breeze.