the elms; but in the summer it was all very green and very quiet. Particularly at lesson time, when the "others" were busy with Miss Grey, and Dickie must not make a noise because baby was asleep. Then there was only Andrew to be seen in the distance, bending over his barrow or rake or spade; but he never looked up to the nursery window, and this was not surprising, for Andrew had a great deal to do. He worked in the garden, and fed the chickens, and took care of Ruby the horse, and sometimes drove the wagonette into Nearminster; he also rang the church bell, and was parish clerk. Perhaps it was because he had so much on his mind that he was of a melancholy disposition, and seldom disposed for conversation with the children. They thought it a pity sometimes that neither the nursery nor the schoolroom window looked out to the front of the house, for it was only a little way back from the street; not that there was much going on in the village, but still you could hear the "clink, clink" from the blacksmith's forge opposite, and see anyone passing the white gate which led out into the road. The vicarage was an old house; many and many a vicar had lived in it, and altered or added to it according to his liking, so that it was full of twists and turns, inside and out, and had wonderful nooks and corners, and strange cupboards under the stairs. Pennie, who was eleven years old, and a great hand at "making up," thought a good deal about those old bygone vicars, and founded some of her choicest romances upon them. There was one particular vicar, a tablet to whose memory was placed in the chancel just opposite the Hawthorns' seat in church. "Godfrey Ablewhite, sometime vicar of this parish," etcetera.