un in, or we shall be late and lose our punctuality
marks! But first I will tell you both one more thing. I have even
thought of a name for this house in the tree. The Eagle's Nest. What
do you say to that?" But the twins' admiration and enthusiasm for
their elder sister could not find a vent in mere words.

CHAPTER III.

THE EAGLE'S NEST.

A good name is half the battle. That the Eagle's Nest was going to be
a magnificent success all the children felt at once. Fortunately it
was Saturday, and there were no lessons to be done after dinner, so
they had a whole long afternoon in which to lay the foundations of
their new house.

When Captain West married and left the navy, many years before our
story begins, he had bought Beechgrove and the little farm attached to
the house. So his children had no lack of fields and outhouses in
which to play, directly they were old enough for Nurse to trust them
out of her sight. The only rule that they were bound to observe was:
Never to go off their father's property. This was not often felt to be
an oppressive regulation, for the dozen fields of which the farm
consisted contained untold treasures, in the way of hedges rich in
birds' nests, and green slimy ponds alive with newts and tadpoles. The
fact was, that the children had never yet found any day long enough to
explore the fields to their entire satisfaction.

But there was one corner of the Beechgrove farm which seemed more
mysteriously interesting than all the rest. In the first place, it was
at an immense distance from the house; a grown-up person on a hot day
would very likely have taken nearly a quarter of an hour to walk there.
The children, of course, took much longer; they never went straight
anywhere, and even if they started to run they forgot half-way where
they were going, and wandered off in several directions, after passing
objects of interest, before they remembered. So, excepting on long
summer afternoons, they very seldom got as far as this particular
corner, where the beech-trees grew in such abundance as to give their
name to the whole place.

There was another reason as well as its remoteness from civilization
which made the children regard this corner with a peculiarly awe-struck
interest. On the other side of the high wall which bounded the farm at
this end lived an old lady, about whom most extraordinary stories were
told. She was undoubtedly eccentric and fond of seclusion, as she