y along the most inviting by-roads and paths; and she
let chance direct her feet through this friendly, sunny land where one
little hill was as green as another, and one little brook as clear and
musical as another, and the dainty, ferny patches of woodlands resembled
one another.

It was a delight to scramble over stone walls; she adored lying flat and
wriggling under murderous barbed-wire, feeling the weeds brush her face.
When a brook was a little too wide to jump, it was ecstasy to attempt
it. She got both shoes wet and loved it. Brambles plucked boldly at her
skirt; wild forest blossoms timidly summoned her aside to kneel and
touch them, but to let them live; squirrels threatened her and rushed
madly up and down trees defying her; a redstart in vermilion and black,
fussed about her where she sat, closing and spreading its ornamental
tail for somebody's benefit--perhaps for hers.

[Illustration: "'Miss West!' he exclaimed. 'How on earth did you ever
find your way into my woods?'"]

She was not tired; she did not suppose that she had wandered very far,
but, glancing at her watch, she was surprised to find how late it was.
And she decided to return.

After she had been deciding to return for about an hour it annoyed her
to find that she could not get clear of the woods. It seemed
preposterous; the woods could not be very extensive. As for being
actually lost it seemed too absurd. Life is largely composed of
absurdities.

There was one direction which she had not tried, and it lay along a
bridle path, but whether north or south or east or west she was utterly
unable to determine. She felt quite certain that Estwich could not lie
either way along that bridle-path which stretched almost a straight,
dark way under the trees as far as she could see.

Vexed, yet amused, at her own stupid plight, she was standing in the
road, trying to make up her mind to try it, when, far down the vista, a
horseman appeared, coming on at a leisurely canter; and with a sigh of
relief she saw her troubles already at an end.

He drew bridle abreast of her, stared, sprang from his saddle and, cap
in hand, came up to her holding out his hand:

"Miss West!" he exclaimed. "How on earth did you ever find your way into
my woods?"

"I don't know, Mr. Cardemon," she said, thankful to encounter even him
in her dilemma. "I must have walked a great deal farther than I meant
to."

"You've walked at least five miles if you came by road; and no