258 IDLEHURST : 



his iron church : I replied that the unsound state of 

 our heating apparatus took all I had to spare. But 

 suppose Sussex as silly as you like ; the country 

 wants a large preserve of fallow brains ; you can't 

 manure the intellect for close-cropping. Isn't it 

 Renan who attributes so much to solid Breton 

 stupidity in his ancestors ? " But our virgin soil is 

 going fast. My Lords keep the drill at work ; you 

 know the kind of seed ; ' urit avense,' eh ? " The 

 lunch-bell, echoing the half-past chime, called us into 

 the house, where we found an invasion of Alice's 

 friends, come for a sort of farewell festivity. Bob 

 is gone already ; Alice goes away next week ; and 

 all the company will soon be scattered. As the after- 

 noon was cool, and the want of Bob's leadership was 

 evidently felt, the elders were impressed into the 

 after-lunch game of hide-and-seek, with a handsome 

 implied compliment in Kitty Culpeper's preliminary 

 charge to us all to keep to terra firma "And I say, 

 you know, we won't have any climbing trees ! " But 

 even on the earth the wild career was too much for 

 some of us, who found breath to suggest a mushroom- 

 gathering. So we got baskets, and all trooped across 

 the meadows behind the church ; and while we elders 

 did our share of picking (for what more engrossing 



