et on the road, when they happened to go beyond the grounds on a
fishing expedition, or down with their aunt through her lands; but her
brother had been an all-sufficient playmate, and Grace's interest in the
peasant children did not extend beyond a glance of curiosity. But now
how gladly would she gather a little company of them to tell them that
old sweet story, which had come to her own heart with such new strange
sweetness, during these winter days, though she had heard it ever since
she could remember. Grace hurried eagerly along the high road, looking
at every turn for traces of any lowly wayside dwellings. There used to
be a little clump of cottages here, she thought, as she stopped at a
bend of the road where there were traces of recent demolitions, and a
great field of green corn was evidently going to reclaim the waste
place, and presently swallow it up. Behind where the vanished cottages
had stood there stretched a glade of birch-trees, with their low twisted
stems rising from little knolls of turf so mossy and steep, that the
drills of turnips and potatoes could not possibly be ranged there
without destroying their symmetry, even though the crooked birch-trees
were to be swept away.

Grace wandered among the budding trees, and through the soft springy
turf that was growing green again in spite of the bitter spring winds,
but she found no little native lurking among the birches, and was
disappointed to come to the other side of the wood much more quickly
than she expected, without the _detour_ being of any practical use.

The turf sloped away to a little stream that went singing cheerily over
sparkling pebbles, bubbling and foaming round the base of grey lichened
rocks, that reared their heads above the water, as if in angry
remonstrance at their daring to interfere with its progress. On the
opposite bank there stretched a bit of muirland pasture, studded with
little knolls of heather, growing green, in preparation for its richer
autumn tints. The pale spring sunlight began to grow more mellow in its
light at this afternoon hour; it glinted on the little gurgling stream,
lighted up the feathery birch glade, and lay in golden patches on the
opposite bank, where Grace noticed some cattle begin to gather on the
heathery knolls, as if they had come to enjoy the last hour of bright
sunshine. Perhaps some little cottages may be sheltered behind those
hillocks, Grace thought; and she began to examine how the grey ro