Hester saw the difficulty in Regie's mind.

"It felt common when it was inside," said Regie, doubtfully, "and yet you and Uncle Dick did say it was a flying one."

Regie's large eyes were turned upon her with solemn inquiry in them. It is crises like this that our first ideals are laid low.

Regie had always considered Hester as the very soul of honor, that mysterious honor which he was beginning to dimly apprehend through her allegiance to it, and which, in his mind, belonged as exclusively to her as the little bedroom under the roof.

"Regie," said Hester, tremulously, seeing that she had unwittingly put a stumbling-block before the little white feet she loved, "when we played at the doll's tea-party, and you were the butler, I did not mean you were really a butler, did I? I knew, and you knew, and we all knew, that you were Regie all the time."

"Ye-es."

"It was a game. And so when Uncle Dick found us playing the tea-party game he played another game about the flying half-penny."

"Then it was a common half-penny, after all," said Regie, with a deep sigh.

"Yes, it was a common half-penny, only the game was that it could fly, like the other game was that the acorn cups were real teacups. So Uncle Dick and all of us were not saying what was not true. We were all playing at a game. Do you understand, my little mouse?"

"Yes," said Regie, with another voluminous sigh, and Hester realized, with thankfulness, that the half-penny and not herself had fallen from its pedestal. "I see now; but when he said, Hi! Presto! and it flew away, I thought I saw it flying. Mary said she did. And I suppose the gate was only a game, too."

Hester felt that the subject would be quite beyond her powers of explanation if once the gate were introduced into it.

She laid Regie down and covered him.

"And you will go to sleep now. And I will ask Uncle Dick when next he comes to show us how he did the game with the half-penny."

"Yes," said Regie, dejectedly. "I'd rather know what there is to be known. Only I thought it was a flying one. Good-night, Auntie Hester."

She stayed beside him a few minutes until his even breathing showed her he was asleep, and then slipped back to her own room. The front-door bell was ringing as she came out of the nursery. The temperance deputation from Liverpool had arrived. Mr. Gresley's voice of welcome could be heard saying that it was only ten minutes to seven.

Accordingly, a few minutes before that hour, Mr. Gresley and his party entered the Parish Room. It was crammed. The back benches were filled with a large contingent of young men, whose half-sheepish, half-sullen expression showed that their presence was due to pressure. Why the parishioners had come in such numbers it would be hard to say. Perhaps even a temperance meeting was a change in the dreary monotony of rural life at Warpington. Many of the faces bore the imprint of this monotony, Rachel thought, as she refused the conspicuous front seat pointed out to her by Mrs. Gresley, and sat down near the door with Hester.