Day after day left us indignant that, in spite of all temptations, no thrush or blackbird had laid an egg, so far as we knew. But all things seemed possible. One day, in a mere afternoon walk, we found, not far beyond a muddle of new streets, a district “very beautiful and quiet,” says the diary. Losing our way, we had to hire a punt to take us across the stream--I suppose, the Wandle. Beautiful and quiet, too, was the night when Philip scaled the high railings into the grounds of a neighbouring institution, climbed one of the tall elms of its rookery--I could see him up against the sky, bigger than any of the nests, in the topmost boughs--and brought down the first egg. It was the Tuesday before an early Easter, a clear blue, soft day which drove clean out of our minds all thought of fog, frost, and rain, past or to come. Mr Stodham had come into the yard of Abercorran House on the way to his office, as I had on my way to school. Finding Aurelius sitting in the sun with Ladas, he said in his genial, nervous way: “That’s right. You are making the best of a fine day. Goodness knows what it will be like to-morrow.” “And Goodness cares,” said Aurelius, almost angrily, “I don’t.” “Sorry, sorry,” said Mr Stodham, hastily lighting his pipe. “All right,” said Aurelius, “but if you care about to-morrow, I don’t believe you really care about to-day. You are one of those people, who say that if it is not always fine, or fine when they want it, they don’t care if it is never fine, and be damned to it, say they. And yet they don’t like bad weather so well as I do, or as Jessie does. Now, rain, when it ought not to be raining, makes Jessie angry, and if the day were a man or woman she would come to terms with it, but it isn’t, and what is more, Jessie rapidly gets sick of being angry, and as likely as not she sings ‘Blow away the morning dew,’ and finds that she likes the rain. She has been listening to the talk about rain by persons who want to save Day and Martin. I prefer Betty Martin.... Do you know, Arthur tells me the house martins will soon be here?” We looked up together to see if it was a martin that both of us had heard, or seemed to hear, overhead, but, if it was, it was invisible.