danger of further fall--for he had resolved that, if he could help it,
not another stone should come to the ground.

In this, his first summer at home from college, he also fitted up a
small forge--in a part of the ruins where there was a wide chimney,
whose vent ran up a long way unbroken. Here he constructed a pair of
great bellows, and set up an old anvil, which he bought for a trifle
from Mr Willett; and here his father actually trusted him to shoe his
horses; nor did he ever find a nail of Willie's driving require to be
drawn before the shoe had to give place to a new one.

In the afternoon, he always read history, or tales, or poetry; and in
the evening did whatever he felt inclined to do--which brings me to what
occupied him the last hours of the daylight, for a good part of this
first summer.

One lovely evening in June, he came upon Agnes, who was now eight years
old, lying under the largest elm of a clump of great elms and Scotch
firs at the bottom of the garden. They were the highest trees in all the
neighbourhood, and his father was very fond of them. To look up into
those elms in the summer time your eyes seemed to lose their way in a
mist of leaves; whereas the firs had only great, bony, bare, gaunt arms,
with a tuft of bristles here and there. But when a ray of the setting
sun alighted upon one of these firs it shone like a flamingo. It seemed
as if the surly old tree and the gracious sunset had some secret between
them, which, as often as they met, broke out in ruddy flame.

Now Agnes was lying on the thin grass under this clump of trees, looking
up into their mystery--and--what else do you think she was doing?--She
was sucking her thumb--her custom always when she was thoughtful; and
thoughtful she seemed now, for the tears were in her eyes.

"What is the matter with my pet?" said Willie.

But instead of jumping up and flinging her arms about him, she only
looked at him, gave a little sigh, drew her thumb from her mouth,
pointed with it up into the tree, and said, "I can't get up there! I
wish I was a bird," and put her thumb in her mouth again.

"But if you were a bird, you wouldn't be a girl, you know, and you
wouldn't like that," said Willie--"at least _I_ shouldn't like it."

"_I_ shouldn't mind. I would rather have wings and fly about in the
trees."

"If you had wings you couldn't have arms."

"I'd rather have wings."

"If you were a bird up there, you would be sure to wish you were a