'But of course you will throw them away as soon as they are faded, poor dears!' continued Miss Virginia. I didn't see what else a sensible man could do with decaying vegetation, though it was plain that this was not what she expected me to say. Luckily, the village came in sight at this moment, so I was able to change the subject. Miss Virginia seems very keen on villages, and went on about the thatched cottages and the church tower and the lych-gate in such a way that I conclude they don't have these things in America, where people are really up to date. It was in vain for me to tell her that thatch is earwiggy, as well as damp, and that every sensible landowner is substituting slate roofs as fast as he can. We went into the church, which was as cold and dark as a vault, and Miss Virginia was intensely pleased with that too, and I could hardly get her away. In the meantime, the sun had come out tremendously strong, and as it had rained for some days previously, the whole place was steaming like a caldron, and we both suddenly felt most awfully slack. 'Let's take a bite here,' I suggested. 'There is sure to be a pothouse of sorts, and we shall be late for the hotel luncheon anyway.' The idea seemed to please Miss Virginia, and we hunted for the pothouse and found it in a corner. 'Oh, what a dear little inn!' cried she. 'I shall love anything they serve here!' I was thinking of the luncheon, not the inn, myself, and did not expect great things from the look of the place, which was low and poky, with thatched eaves and windows all buried in clematis and ivy. A little cobbled path led up to the door, with lots of wallflower growing in the crannies of the wall on each side. There was nobody but a lass to attend to us, and she gave us bread and cheese, and clouted cream and plum jam. It wasn't bad. Virginia talked ten to the dozen all the time, and the funny thing was, she made me talk too. For the first time in my life I felt that it might not be a bad thing to be friends with a girl as you can be with a man, but such a thing is not possible, of course. After a while Virginia went off to make friends with the landlady and pick flowers in the garden. How beastly dingy and dark the inn parlour seemed then, when I had time to look about! I felt, all of a sudden, most tremendously down on my luck. Why? I have had these fits of the blues lately; I think it must be the Devonshire cream; I must stop it. We got home all right. I carried all Miss Virginia's flowers which the old woman had given her,--about a stack of daffodils, lilies, and clematis. CECILIA EVESHAM _Sunday evening_