He said, “Well, if I’m the torturer, I ought to be allowed to choose the tortures, and I’m a very enervating torturer.” I don’t know exactly what he meant, because he’s fond of using long words that make grown-up people laugh, and then getting sulky. But I _was_ surprised when he went on solemnly, “Slave, go and put your head in the meal-barrel.” Of course he meant that I was really to do it, because if one is able to do a thing there’s no use in just pretending it; but a nice rage Fräulein would have been in. She’s our governess and I expect she’d have given me extra practising for a week. If there’s one thing I loathe it’s the piano, especially now that Fräulein comes and sits beside me. She used to be in the other room, which is warmer, and just shout out every now and then, “Zu schnell, ein, zwei, drei, vier,” so I could read the book on my lap quite comfortably. The music sounded just the same, and you could shut up your knees quickly if you heard any one coming, but somehow Fräulein discovered it. Well, thinking of the extra practising I should have to do, I said to Humphrey rather crossly, “You’re really too stupid to play with.” Then I walked to the other end of the room. I forget if I said that all this happened one Sunday when Mother and Father had gone up to town for a lunch party. (Mother hates being away from us like that, especially on a Sunday, but they had to go.) Fräulein had been getting the little ones ready for church, but now they came down and we started almost directly. It was such a lovely day that we took the short cut through the woods; I found some wild roses, quite pink ones, and the paths were all mossy and quiet. I stopped wanting to be cross; woods always do make one feel gooder somehow. It is all so silent and lovely. In church it was very nice too. We had a most splendid sounding psalm, and “Onward Christian Soldiers,” which is my favourite hymn, and we didn’t stay for the sermon. By the time we got out I was perfectly aching with goodness; I wanted to go away at once and bind up wounded soldiers and things like that. I was going along planning it all, and how nobly I’d catch fever from a poor drummer-boy and lie beautiful in death with wreaths all around me, when suddenly I remembered what Mother once said about people thinking they’d do great deeds and passing by the duties that are on their path. So, as Humphrey was dawdling behind, because he was cross, I waited for him and asked him if I should tell him some story. This doesn’t sound much but really it was awfully hard, because you don’t know how horrid Humphrey looks when he is sulky. Besides, the little ones are always bothering me to tell them stories, so I get rather sick of it, and Mother said that they must give me a holiday and not even ask me to on Sundays.