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aunt1 other hand. Thus with their faces so close to each other that th girl's hair brushed his cheek the two cousins, for an appreciable passage of time, clung to the elderly woman as if their mutua contact with her brought them closer.
    And thus they entered the outskirts of the village of North wold. It was Miss Elizabeth Crow who made the motion to releas* her fingers.
    “ Tis like old times to see ye all back,” remarked the driver as his two front-seat passengers resumed their normal position. “It makes anyone wish he were brought up to Church. Us chapel-folk are less liable to be gathered together by funerals. When the Lord divides us, He divides us. But Norfolk gentry, all such as I've seen, and I've seen a deal o'n one way and another, are mighty tender over the family. Me own mother had five of us and I've got more nephies than I knows of, yet devil a one would I want to see coming up me steps. Tis as nat'ral to me to turn and run from a blood-relation as it is to some folks to hug 'e*n to heart.”
    “I am afraid human nature is much the same all the world over,” remarked Miss Elizabeth,
    “So 'tis, Madam. So 'tis,” said the man, winking at John Crow. “If I were a cousin of the late Canon, not Ameriky itself would keep me from hearing Lawyer Didlington read the old gentleman's will!”
    They had reached the middle of the village at this point and the visitor from France laid his hand on the driver's elbow. “You can set me down here,” he said.
    “No, no,” cried Aunt Elizabeth. “I can't allow that. I'll vouch for it that Philip will be glad to welcome you to lunch. He and my niece Tilly went ahead in the first car, leaving us detached females to follow with the luggage.”
    But the machine had stopped; and John, holding his bag in his hand, was already out in the road.
    “There'll be quite enough of us all without me, Aunt,” he said.
    “Good-bye for a time! As our friend here reminds us, we'll all meet in a few hours, when Lawyer What's-his-name opens Grandfather's will.”
    But Miss Elizabeth was destined to receive a much severer shock than the escape of her eccentric nephew.
    “What are you doing, Mary?” she cried in consternation at the sight of her young niece rapidly following John Crow out of the motor car.
    “I'm going to stay with Cousin John,” she said. “We'll be at the service. You can tell Philip without fail we'll be at the service.”
    “But, Mary—you can't do that! What will Tilly say? What will Philip do? Mary—think! We want your help with Persephone and her husband. You know how Philip and Mr. Spear always work each other up. Mary, you really can't do this!”
    Mary came close up to the window of the car through which her aunt was protesting. “It's all right, dear,” she said. “Tilly will manage. You'll look after Dave Spear yourself and see that he doesn't make Philip too angry. You're always doing that sort of thing for all of us. Grandfather's servants are used to entertaining people. They won't run away, any more than we shall, before the will is read.” The bitter east wind made the girl pull her black woolen scarf tightly round her neck. There was something in the genius loci of that Anglo-Danish spot that seemed to evoke all her contrariness. “You're not Euphemia Drew, darling, so don't try to be. It was to get rid of Miss 'Phemia for a bit that I let Philip bring me. / know there's nothing for me in Grandfather's will! Be the darling you always are, Aunt, and explain to Philip. I swear I'll bring Cousin John to the service in good time.”
    In the startled pause that followed the girl's appeal Elizabeth Crow's mind flashed back to those days when she was indeed “busy” as John had said. She had outlived all her generation; and yet she was not even now an old woman. This came from being the youngest by many, many years of William Crow's children. Ah! How her thoughts ran to her dead father. He would have no flesh and blood of his own to keep him