rted even by the
dragon-flies.

At the other side of the brook was a hedge, composed principally of wild
roses and hawthorn bushes, and beyond the hedge was a wide dyke, and at
the top of the dyke a wire paling, and beyond that again, a good-sized
vegetable garden.

From the tops of the trees, had any one been energetic enough to climb
up there, or had any bird been sufficiently endowed with curiosity to
glance his bright eyes in that direction, might have been seen smoke,
ascending straight up into the air, and proceeding from the kitchen
chimneys of a square-built gray house.

The house was nearly covered with creepers, and had a trellis porch,
sheltering and protecting its open hall-door. Pigeons were cooing near,
and several dogs were lying flat out in the shade which the wide eaves
of the house afforded. There was a flower garden in front, and a wide
gravel sweep, and a tennis court and croquet lawn, and a rose arbor, and
even a great, wide, cool-looking tent. But as far as human life was
concerned the whole place looked absolutely deserted. The pigeons cooed
languidly, and the dogs yapped and yawned, and made ferocious snaps at
audacious and troublesome flies. But no one handled the tennis bats, nor
took up the croquet mallets; no one stopped to admire the roses, and no
one entered the cool, inviting tent. The whole place might have been
dead, as far as human life was concerned; and although the smoke did
ascend straight up from the kitchen chimney, a vagrant or a tramp might
have been tempted to enter the house by the open hall door, were it not
protected by the lazy dogs.

Up, however, by the hedge, at the other side of the kitchen garden,
could be heard just then the crackle of a bough, the rustle of a dress,
and a short, smothered, impatient exclamation. And had anyone peered
very close they would have seen lying flat in the long grasses a tall,
slender, half-grown girl, with dark eyes and rosy cheeks, and tangled
curly rebellious locks. She had one arm raised, and was drawing herself
deliberately an inch at a time along the smooth grass. Several birds had
taken refuge in this fragrant hedge of hawthorn and wild roses. They
were talking to one another, keeping up a perpetual chatter; but
whenever the girl stirred a twig, or disturbed a branch, they stopped,
looking around them in alarm, but none of them as yet seeing the prone,
slim figure, which was, indeed, almost covered by the grasses. Perfect
stillne