“If you will go and fetch someone to drive that animal away I will give you something to buy yourself a nice present,” said Mrs. Stossen.

Matilda came several inches lower down the medlar tree.

“That is the most practical suggestion you have made yet for getting out of the garden,” she remarked cheerfully; “Claude and I are collecting money for the Children’s Fresh Air Fund, and we are seeing which of us can collect the biggest sum.”

“I shall be very glad to contribute half a crown, very glad indeed,” said Mrs. Stossen, digging that coin out of the depths of a receptacle which formed a detached outwork of her toilet.