Sunday, Pobs would be officiating at the early service, so that she
would escape the long trudge down to the sea with him for their usual
morning swim.

By the time she had bathed and dressed, however, she felt better able
to face the day with a cheerful spirit, and the sun, streaming in
through the diamond panes of her window, added a last vivifying touch
and finally sent her downstairs on the best of terms with herself and
the world at large.

There was no one about, as Joan had accompanied her father to church,
so Diana sauntered out on to the flagged path and paced idly up and
down, waiting for their return. The square, grey tower of the church,
hardly more than a stone's throw distant from the Rectory, was visible
through a gap in the trees where a short cut, known as the "church
path" wound its way through the copse that hedged the garden. It was
an ancient little church, boasting a very beautiful thirteenth century
window, which, in a Philistine past, had been built up and rough-cast
outside, and had only been discovered in the course of some repairs
that were being made to one of the walls. The inhabitants of Crailing
were very proud of that thirteenth century window when it was
disinterred; they had a proprietary feeling about it--since, after all,
it had really belonged to them for a little matter of seven centuries
or so, although they had been unaware of the fact.

Below the slope of the Rectory grounds the thatched roofs of the
village bobbed into view, some gleaming golden in all the pride of
recent thatching, others with their crown of straw mellowed by sun and
rain to a deeper colour and patched with clumps of moss, vividly green
as an emerald.