"My name is Charlie Evans. What's yours? I saw you all in church last Sunday. I don't always come to church. I have headaches."
He said it with an air of pride. Faith looked at him pityingly.
"And don't you go to school?"
"No. I do lessons with mother, and she hates them, and so do I."
"And so do I!" said Faith eagerly. "But we shall have to begin them soon."
"Come and see my rabbits," Charlie said.
The little girls hesitated.
"We won't come to-day, till we ask Granny," said Hope; "but we'll come to-morrow, if she'll let us. Faith went to see some gipsies the other day and she didn't like it."
Charlie turned to Faith.
"Did you? What were they like? Dad told mother he was going to get a sick gipsy out of her van into hospital. She had nobody to look after her, but she went off before he could move her. Gipsies hate being taken care of!"