led
most quickly beyond the grounds. Presently she slackened her pace, and
turning for a moment she glanced rather ruefully towards the high walls
of the old garden, as if prudence dictated that she should seek fuller
information there, before she set out on this search, which she had
planned that afternoon. The old nurse's words on the subject seemed to
have sent a chilling gust to her heart, harder to bear than the bitter
spring wind. Old Adam certainly knew the countryside better than anybody
else, she pondered, and he seemed to have given it as his decision that
she would not find her search successful.

Was it a rare plant growing in the valley that Grace was in search of?
Then, surely, the gardener was right; she should wait till the warm
sunshine came, and the south winds wafted sweet scents about, leading to
where the pleasant flowers grow among the cozy moss. Or did she mean to
go to the green velvety haughs of the winding river to get her
fishing-rod and tackle into working order at the little boat-house, and
try to tempt some unwary trout to eat his last supper, as she and her
brother Walter used to do in sunny summer evenings long ago?

These had been very pleasant days, and their lingering memories came
hovering round Grace as she stood once again among the familiar haunts,
after an absence of years. Echoes of merry ringing tones, in which her
own mingled, seemed to resound through the wooded paths, where only the
parching wind whistled shrilly to-day, and a boyish voice seemed still
to call impatiently under the lozenge-paned window of the old
school-room, "Gracie, Gracie, are you not done with lessons yet? Do come
out and play." And how dreary "Noel and Chapsal" used to grow all of a
sudden when that invitation came, and with what relentless slowness the
hands of the old clock dragged through the lesson-hour still to run.

But the quaint old window has the shutters on it now, and the eager face
that used to seek his caged playmate through its bars is looking out on
new lands from his wandering home at sea. The little girl, too, who used
to sit in the dim school-room seems to hear other voices calling to her
this afternoon.

And while Grace stands hesitating whether, after all, it might be wise
to go into the garden to hear what old Adam has to say before she
proceeded to the high road, we shall try to find what earnest quest sent
her out this afternoon, in spite of her old nurse's remonstrances and
t