for all she's so changeable and flighty, there
are times that if she takes up a thing, _nothing_ will get it from
her--make her drop it, I mean,--till she's done it. And she'd gone on so
about hiding in the church that I think nurse was a little
uncomfortable. Perhaps she began to wish she hadn't told us the story
of her mother, but I wouldn't say so, for I didn't want to vex her.
She'd been really so very kind.

After that Sunday, however, for some weeks nothing more was said about
it, and we left off talking of the Maggie story. We had so many other
things to do and to speak about. The weather got all right again, even
better than before, for every day now was getting us nearer and nearer
into the real summer; though, of course, even in the middle of summer
there do come cold wet bits, just like our first day at Mossmoor. But
for some time we had nothing but lovely weather.

It's a very drying soil all about Fewforest; after two or three fine
days, even in the woods, the ground is so dry that you'd think it hadn't
rained since the world was made. It's partly with the trees being mostly
firs which are so neat and bare low down--no mess of undergrowth about
them. And the soil is very nice, so beautifully clean and crunchy to
walk on, for it's made of the pricks that fall off the firs, in great
part. It's perfectly splendid to lie on--springy and yielding and not a
bit dirty--your things don't get soiled in the least.

They say, too, that the scent or breath of pines and firs--I think it's
rather nice to think it's the sweet breath of the trees, don't you?--is
awfully good for coughs or illnesses to do with coughs. So it suited us
very well indeed to spend a great part of our time in the woods. And
certainly the girls' coughs soon went quite away. I was glad. I really
could _hardly_ help hitting them sometimes when they would go on barking
and whooping, even though I suppose they couldn't stop it. They still
coughed a little if they ran too fast, or if they got excited or angry.
I do believe Serry pretended it sometimes just to be aggravating, for
she was in rather an aggravating humour at that time. I think it was
partly from not having Hebe, who has such a good way with her, and as
Anne and Maud always stick together, you see Serena was rather left to
me, and I don't pretend to have a good way with her at all, she makes me
so angry. Though we get on a good deal better now than we did then.

Still, on the whole, we w