and made
haste to get their dinner; after which Lucy packed up a little tea and
sugar, which her mamma had given her, in a basket; and the little
girls, having put on their bonnets and tippets, went into the kitchen
to see if Betty was ready. Betty was tying up a small loaf and a pot of
butter in a clean napkin; and she had put some nice cream into a small
bottle, for which John was cutting a cork.

"Betty, are you ready?" said Henry; "Lucy has got the tea and sugar,
and Emily has got Miss Dolly, and I have got my hat and stick. So come,
Betty, come!"

"But who is to milk the cow?" said John, pretending to look grave;
"Betty must stay to milk the cow at five o'clock."

"No, John!" said the children, all gathering round him; "good John,
will you be so kind as to milk the cow, and let Betty go?"

"Well, I will see about it," said John, putting the cork into the cream
bottle.

"There's a good John!" said Emily.

"I love you, John!" said Henry. "And now, Betty, come, make haste
away."

So the children set out; and they went out across the garden to a
little wicket-gate which Mr. Fairchild had opened towards the coppice,
and came into Henry's favourite Sunday walk. The green trees arched
over their heads; and on each side the pathway was a mossy bank, out of
which sprang such kind of flowers as love shady places--such as the
wood anemone and wild vetch: thrushes and blackbirds were singing
sweetly amongst the branches of the trees.

"This is my walk," said Henry; "and I say it is the prettiest in the
country."

"No, Henry," said Emily; "it is not so pretty as the walk to the hut at
the top of the hill: for there you can look all over the coppice, and
see the birds flying over the tops of the trees."

"Sister," said Lucy, "now you shall carry my basket, and I will have
the doll a little."

"With all my heart," said Emily.

"Why don't you give Miss to me?" said Henry.

"Oh, yes!" said Emily. "Did I not give her to you one day; and did you
not hang her upon a tree in the garden, with a bit of string round her
neck, and say she was a thief?"

"Lucy," said Henry, "let us have a race to that tree which has fallen
down over the path."

So away they ran; and when they got to the tree they sat down upon the
trunk until Betty came up with Emily. On one side of the fallen tree
was a place where the wood had been cut away, and the woodmen had made
themselves a little hut, which they had now left empty. Round this hu