nt forest, the place of virgin timber, dense thickets, and
natural openings, that tourists always praised beyond anything else.
The stream ran babbling through it, with pretty little pools,
cascades, and fords, all owning names that spoke of bygone times--such
as White Doe's Leap, Knight's Well, and Monk's Crossing. Locally it
was not, of course, so highly esteemed. Cottagers said it was "a
lonesome, fearsome bit o'country," and, whether because of the ugly
memories that hung about it, or in view of extremely modern stories of
disagreements between Chase guardians and poachers, considered it an
undesirable short cut after dark from anywhere to anywhere.

To-day it seemed to Mavis friendly and pleasant as well as beautiful.
The mist slowly rising was now high overhead, so that one could see to
a considerable distance. Some fern-cutters in shirt-sleeves and slouch
hats were already at work, cutting with rhythmic precision, calling to
one another, and whistling tunefully.

One or two of them greeted her as she passed.

By the time she reached the straight rides and the fir trees the sun
came bursting forth bravely, the shadows just danced before vanishing,
the mist broke into rainbow streamers, and then there was nothing more
between one's head and the milky blue sky. She walked within a
stone's-throw of Kibworth Rocks, and did not feel a tremor, scarcely
even a recollection. People nowadays came here from Rodchurch and
Manninglea on Sunday afternoons, making it the goal for wagonette
drives, wandering up and down, and gaping at a scene rendered
interesting to them merely because it had once been the background of
tragedy; and Mavis was thinking more of these Sunday visitors than of
the dead man, as she hurried through the sunlight so near the spot
where he had lain staring with glassy eyes throughout the darkness of
a July night.

She thought of him a little later, when she stood on the higher ground
looking at what live men were constructing in fulfilment of his wish,
and her mind did not hold the least tinge of bitterness. At present
the Barradine Orphanage was simply an eye-sore to miles and miles of
the country-side, but no doubt, as she thought, it would be all very
fine when finished. The bad weather of the winter had caused progress
to be rather slow; the red brickwork was only about ten feet out of
the ground, but a shell of scaffolding enabled one to trace the
general plan. It would be a central block with tw