g to show their little scarlet
balls on the banks in the Ravensnest woods. Both she and Olly went to
bed after their first day at Ravensnest with their little hearts full of
happiness, and their little heads full of plans. To-morrow they were to
go to Aunt Emma's, and perhaps the day after that father would take them
to bathe in the river, and nurse would let them go and help Becky and
Tiza call the cows. Holidays _were_ nice; still geography lessons were
nice too sometimes, thought Milly sleepily, just as she was slipping,
slipping away into dreamland, and in her dreams her faithful little
thoughts went back lovingly to Fraeulein's kind old face, and to the
capes and islands and seas she had been learning about a week ago.

[Illustration: "The flowers Milly gathered for her mother"]

The next morning Mr. and Mrs. Norton were busy indoors till about twelve
o'clock; and the children wandered about the garden with nurse, finding
out many new nooks and corners, especially a delightful steep path which
led up and up into the woods, till at last it took the children to a
little brown summer-house at the top, where they could sit and look over
the trees below, away to the river and the hay-fields and the mountains.
And between the stones and this path grew the prettiest wild
strawberries, only, as Milly said, it was not much good looking for them
yet, for there were so few red ones you could scarcely get enough to
taste what they were like. But in a week or two, she and Olly planned
that they would take up a basket with some green leaves in it, and
gather a lot for father and mother--enough for regular dessert--and some
wild raspberries too, for these also grew in the wood, to the great
delight of the children, who had never seen any before. They began to
feel presently as if it would be nothing very extraordinary to find
trees covered with barley sugar or jam tarts in this wonderful wood. And
as for the flowers Milly gathered for her mother, they were a sight to
see--moon-daisies and meadow-sweet, wild roses and ragged-robins, and
bright bits of rhododendrons. For both the woods and the garden at
Ravensnest were full of rhododendrons of all colours, pink and red, and
white and flame colour; and Milly and Olly amused themselves with making
up bunches of different coloured flowers with as many different colours
in them as they could find. There were no rhododendrons at Willingham;
and the children thought them the loveliest, g