'I'm not a little girl, said Miranda in a tone which left Penn's imagination reeling as to what indeed she was.

To recover he said with an even more ponderous air of jocularity, 'And you don't like ponies either?

'Oh, I like them all right, said Miranda, 'but I got bored with riding. I get bored with anything as soon as I know how to do it. I only like doing things I can't do.

Penn considered this. 'I think I only like doing things I can do. The conversation wasn't going too badly.

'What can you do?

This disconcerted him. What, after all, could he do? He was a pretty good fast bowler; but he had not been able to display this accomplishment, since although a village cricket team existed, the Peronett family had no dealings with it, and Penn, unversed in the hierarchical intricacies of English village life, had not liked to suggest himself as a possible player. He was also, of course, clever with motor bikes, and used to get into the Adelaide stadium free as unpaid mechanic to Tommy Benson. But he didn't like to mention either of these talents to Miranda as it would sound like boasting, and they weren't very rand anyway. So he said, 'I'm not much good at anything, really.

'In that case you don't like anything. Poor you!

'Oh well, I do like things, of course, said Penn, irritated. They walked on in silence.

Then Miranda said, 'Are you going to go to London with Humpo Finch?

'Yes, said Penn. 'I'm going up with him next Wednesday. He greatly looked forward to that. Humphrey Finch had called once or twice and found time to talk to him, for which he was grateful. Humphrey was indeed the only person here, except perhaps Ann, who seemed to have any serious desire to know what he was like.

Miranda laughed. 'Why do you laugh?

'Never you mind. She turned suddenly in through a gateway and Penn found that they were in the churchyard. The church had a prettily shaped plump conical spire which he could see from his window. It was a large church, built in the great days of the wool industry on the Marsh, so he had been told, and the huge plain unstained windows let in the cold Kentish light to reveal a great pillared stoneflagged space in the midst of which huddled the few chairs which accommodated the present congregation. Penn had been in once or twice to look at it, but where everything was so old he could not readily distinguish one thing from another, and it looked to him just like a lot of other churches he had seen. He was on the whole inclined to agree with his father's judgement on English parish churches: 'When you've seen one you've seen the lot.

Miranda, however, did not go into the church, but began to walk along the path that led through the old part of the churchyard between huge box-like stone tombs, yellow with lichen, adorned with crumbling angel-heads, sunk in ivy and brambles, and tilting crazily in all directions. Beyond them enormous yews, great fissured towers of darkness, flanked the churchyard wall.

Penn., trying to keep up with her and stumbling in the long grass, said, 'I rather like churchyards, don't you?

'How many dead people do you know? said Miranda.

Penn was shocked at this question. He thought one should not speak of dead people in this manner as if they could constitute an acquaintance. He said, 'I don't really know. Not many. Hardly any at all.

'I know more than twenty, said Miranda. She added, 'Grandfather must know hundreds.

Penn had not had time to think of an answer to this when they turned the comer of the church and he saw a great lawn stretching away down the hill towards a line of more recently planted cypress trees which stood out, conscious and exotic, against a grove of pollarded chestnuts. On the nearer side of this lawn, which was mown and tended, unlike the wilderness through which they had just passed, there were a few rows of shiny modem grave-stones, and here and there a long mound of earth covered with withered flowers. Penn realized with a tremor that he was now in the presence of the dead, the real dead, not those who had died long ago. He could not think of those great crumbling tombs, riding upon the undulating grasses, as having ever covered a person who was wept for. But here there were the marks of real bereavement. People one might have known were asleep here.

People one might have known. He guessed where he was going just the moment before, as Miranda halted by it, he read upon a newly cut tomb-stone the name of Steven Peronett.

'Oh, said Penn, speaking out of an immediate shock and a sort of shame, 'I didn't know he was here. .

'He's not here, said Miranda.

Penn took a moment to understand her and then was silent. He felt ashamed at not having known where his cousin was buried and ashamed of having followed Miranda without knowing whether she wanted his company; and he felt a vast distress and incoherent pity at standing beside Steve's grave. He looked at the shining ugly surface of the stone. It was odd how stone that one saw nowhere else seemed to appear in cemeteries, as if it were indeed the portal of another world. Steven Peronett. Beloved son of Ann and Randall Peronett. Aged fourteen years. He was older than Steve now. It was a strange thought.

He said to Miranda. 'I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were coming here. I'll go away at once.

But she said, 'No, don't go. Stay and see the birds.

'The birds? He turned to see that she had opened her bag and brought out another paper bag which was inside it. The paper bag was full of fragments of bread.

In front of the stone the grass was flat, mown over, and nothing marked the extent of the grave. Miranda began to strew the bread in a neat rectangle, of which she first marked out the sides with a trail of pieces, till she had covered with the white fragments an area upon which a boy might have lain down. Then she drew back a little across the grass.

Penn followed her in amazement at the strange rite. 'What is this?

'Steve loved birds, said Miranda. 'He always used to feed them at Grayhallock. He would ring a bell every morning and the birds would come. And when he was dying he said to me, «Don't bring flowers to my grave. But come sometimes and feed the birds there. I'd like to think that you might do that.

'Ah, gee — said Penn. A confusion of emotions overwhelmed him.

He felt a sudden grief which was like a kind of joy and for a moment he felt as though he might burst into tears.

Miranda sat down on a long recumbent tomb of plum-coloured marble a little bit away from the grave and Penn sat down beside her. He turned to look at her. An extraordinary dignity and solemnity had come to her from the performance of the rite. Her pale transparent slightly freckled face was serene under the jagged cap of red hair. She was serious, yet a strange smile was diffused upon her features, a light shining from within. She gazed away from him in the direction of the offering of bread, and saw that she was beautiful. Then looking down he saw her knees.

She was wearing green stockings which were pulled up to just above the calf, and her short tartan skirt lay neatly across her legs, just above the knee. Her knees were revealed, bare, white and rounded, between the two garments. Penn stared at them and some stretched cord seemed to twang far away, something gave and broke. He had never thought that he could find a girl's knees exciting. But then Miranda was not a girl. Yet she was not a little girl either. What was she then? And what was happening to him? He stared down and felt quite clearly the urge t. o kneel before her and put his head upon her knees. The distant cuckoo cried out, hesitant, melancholy and hollow. He breathed deeply and raised his gaze. The birds were beginning to come for the bread.