Ann Smith 
tree to the parish. They made it the centre of a 
village festivity, everybody being invited and 
receiving a present from a huge Christmas tree 
at the big house. 
So Ann told; yet oftener went back to everyday 
matters of her childhood. Once she dwelt 
lovingly on the old church in Farnborough Park, 
and especially the charm of its chancel. Over 
the communion-table—which was just a simple 
square table with a cloth on it—was, in place of 
the ordinary East window of modern church 
architecture, a long window with diamond-paned 
lead lights. Greenish but transparent glass 
showed the ivy that was creeping over from the 
outside wall; and beyond, the trees and the sky 
could be seen. The pews in the church were 
high and roomy. Mr. Morant’s pew had no 
curtains, but was upholstered with green baize. 
Another time she told of Slade’s Pond—that 
roadside pond she passed every day on her way to 
school—the pond mentioned elsewhere in con- 
nection with Welsh cattle. Frosty weather made 
Ann Smith’s memories of it vivid again ; for once 
more she seemed to be a school-girl, watching 
her father, with several other leading men in the 
village, sliding on the pond. It was not generally 
deep—waggons went through it in dry weather— 
but a stream ran through it so that there had to be 
a pen-stock at one end; and here and in one other 
spot—‘‘ between the Island and the Hedge ”— 
199 
