New Eve and old Adam: "After all," she said, with a little laugh, "I can't see it was so wonderful of you to hurry home to me, if you are so cross when you do come."

The Prussian Officer: They had marched more than thirty kilometres since dawn, along the white, hot road where occasional thickets of trees threw a moment of shade, then out into the glare again.

The thorn in the flesh: A wind was running, so that occasionally the poplars whitened as if a flame flew up them.

Daughters of the vicar: Mr Lindley was first vicar of Aldecross.

A fragment of stained glass: Beauvale is, or was, the largest parish in England.

The shades of spring: It was a mile nearer through the wood.

Second best: 'Oh, I'm tired!'

The shadow in the rose garden: A rather small young man sat by the window of a pretty seaside cottage trying to persuade himself that he was reading the newspaper.

Goose fair: Through the gloom of evening, and the flare of torches of the night before the fair, through the still fogs of the succeeding dawn came paddlöing the weary geese, lifting their poor feet that had been dipped in tar for shoes, and trailing them along the cobble-stones into the town.

The white stocking: 'I'm getting up, Teddilinks,' said Mrs Whiston, and she sprang out of bed briskly.

A sick collier: She was too good for him, everybody said.

The christening: The mistress of the British School stepped down from her school gate, and instead of turning to the left as usual, she turned to the right.