Leave or no leave, Mrs. Yellam told herself that Alfred was safe till the Spring. Why this conviction came to her she did not explain. Had you asked her, she would have replied, probably, that the wounded boys at the Court affirmed nothing to be doing in mid-winter. The sight of William Saint in khaki nearly made her break into song. The banns of his approaching marriage to the young person behind the bar were called in Nether-Applewhite Church, none too soon, according to Jane Mucklow. Uncle was heard to whisper, "And sarve 'un right!" by neighbours in adjoining pews. He assured his cronies that Mr. Sinner's punishment was to come. Susan rejoiced, also, in the notable fact that Nether-Applewhite harboured no conscientious objectors. Ocknell, the next parish, was not so fortunate. In fine, the first half of December glided by swiftly and pleasantly. Alfred's business became firmly re-established, and, with Saint no longer competing, more remunerative than ever. Mrs. Yellam said to Fancy: "Your child, seemin'ly, may be rich." She refused to speak of the child as a son. But Fancy's conviction about that remained impregnable. "I ought to know, Mother." "Maybe. But you don't. Nobody knows." "Alfred wants him to be a girl." "Do he? I wonders why." "He said a little maid would traipse so nicely after you. I promised him to call her Lizzie. She'll be the next." "Lizzie! Ah-h-h! Alferd be a good son. Fancy his thinkin' o' that. Lizzie----!" She spoke the name almost under her breath. A moment later, she removed her spectacles, and wiped them. The two women were sitting in the kitchen by the hearth, after supper. A basket held the logs. The cradle was upstairs in Mrs. Yellam's room. In that room, despite Fancy's protests, Alfred's child would be born. In that room Susan Yellam's first baby had wailed his regret at finding himself in a wicked world. In that room her husband had died. Everything lay ready to hand; the monthly nurse lived only a quarter of a mile away; the doctor had been advised that he might be wanted at any minute. Fancy loved to sit over the fire, listening to the wind talking to the chimney, telling that stay-at-home the tale of many wanderings. She liked to make-believe that the winds were real persons, although she had never heard of Æolus and his rebellious prisoners. She hated to pick flowers because they must feel so unhappy out of their own garden. Of course, they died of loneliness in mid-Victorian vases. She held inviolate her faith in fairies, beneficent and malevolent. She assured Mrs. Yellam that Solomon could see pixies dancing in their rings. How else could you account for his stopping in the middle of a field and barking? Of her mother and the four Evangelists she said nothing. Uncle and she became great friends.