scape Chanctonbury Ring, though I
have often gone far, even refused invitations, to avoid it. Once in
Yorkshire--but nobody ever will believe that story, though I never
pretended it was the same Ring. What I said was that there may be two of
the same name, or even more: like Richmond, for instance.

"Do you see that hill over there?" he begins. I look where he is
pointing and see three. "No, not that one," and he comes behind me and
points over my shoulder. "Follow my finger," he says, and I follow it
and see a perfectly flat field. But he has to be humoured, and anyhow
there is lunch to be thought of.

"Yes, yes, _I_ see," I reply hastily, with a touch of "How stupid of
me!" in my voice.

"Well, carry your eye along the valley on its left, over the white
house"--this is the only place where there is no white house for
miles--"and along the strip of road. See the strip of road?" ("See the
strip of road!" I've been lost in a bog for ages.) "Well, right up as
far as you can see, following that road and a little to the right, do
you see a patch of trees?"

When he says "patch of trees," I know.

"Chanctonbury Ring," I say brightly. At any rate, _that's_ finished.

"Yes; how did you know?" he asks disappointedly.

Brute that I am! Why didn't I let him say it?

Only once, as far as I can remember, was I wrong. It was in the
Cotswolds and we were in a garden, on the side of a hill. From the
terrace outside the house was a magnificent view. My host strolled up.
"Pity it's so misty," he said. (I had just been thinking how lovely it
looked.) "On a fine day, you know, we can see----"

"_Not_ Chanctonbury Ring?" I said pleadingly.

He looked puzzled.

"Tewkesbury,", he said rather coldly, and soon afterwards strolled away
again.

There are only a very few people whose sympathy one feels sure of when
one confides troubles to them such as this Ring-finding one of mine. Of
the very few I feel surest of my Uncle Edward, so I thought I would tell
him about it when I went to stay with him a little while ago.

"By the by," I said, as we laboured breathlessly up a hill--he lives in
Surrey--"have you ever noticed ... when you're staying with people
anywhere in the South of England ... and they take you for a walk ...
they always, sooner or later----"

"Just wait a minute," he said as we reached the top. "Ah yes, I thought
you could"--he was smiling happily at something. "I wanted to show you
before we went on--just over t