k of the stackyard; and they watched the pigs at their
afternoon meal until Joan turned away in disgust, declaring that "the
dirty fings should be teached better manners, and made to sup their
pow'idge wif a spoon!"

Then, when the sun was sinking low in the west, and they had feasted to
their complete satisfaction on all the dainties that their hostess loved
to set before them, it was time to return to Firgrove.

Mrs. Grey put into Darby's hand the shallow basket of round brown eggs,
with two tiny white ones on the top for themselves that had been laid by
Specky, the lovely black-and-buff bantam. Then, with many kisses and
warnings to be careful, she set the happy pair upon their homeward way.

They took turns at carrying the basket, and paused now and again to peep
at their bantam eggs, not much bigger than marbles, and the others which
held the promise of such sweet baby Cochins within their smooth,
silk-lined shells.

"Oh, I am tired!" sighed Darby at length, when they were still only
half-way down the road, just passing by the entrance to the pine wood.
"Are you tired, Joan?"

"Yes," assented Joan promptly; "this basket's so heavy. Can't we rest
awhile after we pass the trees?"

"We shall rest here," said Darby decidedly; and suiting the action to
the word, he took the basket from his sister's hand, placed it carefully
on the roadside, and, with a deep breath of satisfaction, dropped on
the soft grass beside it, just where the path branched off the highway
into Copsley Wood.

"Darby!" cried Joan in remonstrance, "are you forgetting what you
promised Auntie Alice, and that Aunt Catharine said we wasn't to go into
the wood?"

"I'm not forgetting one bit," he replied loftily. "Sure, sitting here
isn't going into the wood, is it, Miss Joan? Besides, I don't believe
there's any bad people in it. They only want to frighten us," he
continued, in a grown-up sort of tone; and when Darby spoke like that,
Joan felt quite sure he knew what he was talking about--better even than
Aunt Catharine herself!

They sat still for a little while, resting on the soft, mossy grass,
listening to the song of the robins in the hedges, watching the snowy
sea-gulls that hovered about the tail of Mr. Grey's plough as it turned
the stubble into long, even furrows of dark, fresh-smelling soil.

Then a couple of rabbits darted by to their burrow in the wood; and at
the foot of a big beech tree growing close beside the children a whole