ailway crosses the sandhills. Twice they came upon the road
along which, on working days, the peasant women bring their fish to
market in the town. But chiefly they kept to the small, dense woods,
where the sunlight only splashed the ground; or to the open solitary
spaces where the bees hummed in the wild thyme, and the butterflies
chased each other over the low rose bushes.

A good deal after mid-day, at a time dictated entirely by choice, and
not custom, they made their way back to the beer garden. It was a very
little place, scarcely worthy of the name; the smallest possible
house, more like a barn than anything else, right in the shadow of the
wood. The fare to be obtained was bad beer, excellent coffee, new
bread, and old cheese; but it was enough, supplemented by the cakes
bought yesterday in the town; Julia knew enough of the ways of the
place to know one can bring one's own food to such places without
giving offence. As in the morning, when they first passed it, there
was no one about, every one had gone to the fair, except one taciturn
old woman who brought the required things and then shut herself in the
house. The meal was spread under the trees on a little green-painted
table, with legs buried deep in sand; there were two high, straight
chairs set up to the table, and a wooden footstool put by one for
Julia, who, seeing it, said this was certainly a picnic, and it was
really necessary to eat the _broodje_ in the correct picnic way.
Rawson-Clew tried, with much gravity, but she laughed till the
taciturn old woman looked out of window, and wondered who they were,
and how they came to be here.

When the meal was done, they went back again up the steep slope, and
then away on the left. The country on this side was less open, and
more hilly, deeper hollows and larger woods, still there was not much
difficulty in finding the way. The latter part of the day was not so
fine as the earlier, the sky clouded over, and, though there was still
no wind, the air grew more chilly. They hardly noticed the change,
being in a dense young wood where there was little light, but Julia
lost something of the holiday spirit, and Rawson-Clew became grave,
talking more seriously of serious things than had ever before happened
in their curious acquaintanceship. They sat down to rest in a green
hollow, and Julia began to arrange neatly the bunch of short-stemmed
thyme flowers that she carried. They had been quiet for some little
time,