A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE 157 



season and that has raised both the prices and the noses 

 of the wandering accommodators in the air. Something 

 will probably turn up. Now we are transplanting hardy 

 ferns; for though the tender tops break, there is yet 

 plenty of time for a second growth and rooting before 

 winter. 



Meanwhile there is a leisurely old carpenter who 

 recently turned up as heir of the Opal Farm, Amos 

 Opie by name, who is thinking of living there, 

 and has signified his willingness to undertake the per- 

 gola by hour's work, "if he is not hustled," as soon as 

 the posts arrive. 



The past ten days have been full of marvellous dis- 

 coveries for the "peculiar Penroses," as Maria Maxwell 

 heard us called down at the Golf Club, where she rep- 

 resented me at the mid- June tea, which I had wholly 

 forgotten that I had promised to manage when I sent out 

 those P. P. C. cards and stopped the clocks ! 



It seems that the first impression was that financial 

 disaster had overtaken us, when instead of vanishing in 

 a touring car preceded by tooting and followed by a 

 cloud of oil-soaked steam, we took to our own woods, 

 followed by Barney with our effects in a wheelbarrow. 

 It is a very curious fact this attributing of every 

 action a bit out of the common to the stress of pocket 



