“They’re imps, but they’ll have to behave themselves decently in church,” she said to herself.

At present the conduct of the family was exemplary.  They walked in on tip-toe, and talked in whispers.  Mamie, indeed, cast an envious eye towards the forbidden ground of the pulpit, into which it was her ambition some day to climb, and wave her arms about in imitation of the Vicar, but she valiantly restrained her longings, and kept from the neighborhood of the chancel.  Letty took a surreptitious peep at the organ, and was disappointed to find it locked, as was also the little oak door that led up the winding staircase to the bell tower.  She decided that the parish clerk was much too attentive to his duties.

“Come along over here, can’t you?” said Winona suspiciously.  “Leave those hymn-books alone, and tell Dorrie she’s not to touch the font, or I’ll stick her inside and pop the lid on her.  Go and sit down, all of you, in that pew, while I take the photo.”

The family for once complied obediently, if somewhat reluctantly.  It was better to play the part of spectators than to be left out of the proceedings altogether.  In the circumstances they knew Winona had the whip-hand, and that if she ordered them from the church there would be no appeal.  They watched her now with interest and enthusiasm.

It took her a long time to fix her camera in good position.  It was difficult to see properly in the viewfinder, and she wanted to be quite sure that when the head of Sir Guy was safely in the right-hand corner, his feet were not out of the picture at the left, to say nothing of the ten kneeling children underneath.

“It’s impossible to get the wall above if I’m to take the inscription on the monument,” she declared, “and yet I mustn’t leave out the old helmet on any account.  I shall take it down, and put it at the bottom of the tomb while I photograph it.  It ought to come out rather well there.”

Rejecting eager offers of help from Mamie and Ernie, Winona climbed up on to the stately person of Dame Margaret de Claremont, and managed to take the helmet from the wooden peg on which it was suspended.  She posed it at the foot of the monument, on the right hand side.

“There’s a splendid light from this window—­full sunshine!  I think if I give it five minutes’ exposure, that ought to do the deed.  Now don’t any of you so much as cough, or you’ll disturb the air.”

The family felt that five minutes the very limit of endurance.  The moment it was ended they dispersed to ease their strained feelings.  Letty and Ernie walked briskly up the nave.  Mamie went to investigate the stove.  Winona herself took the camera to the opposite side of the church to photograph a Jacobean tablet.  Six-year-old Dorrie remained sitting on a hassock in the pew.  She had a plan in her crafty young mind.  She wanted to examine the helmet, and she knew Winona would be sure to say “Paws off!” or something equally offensive