ir midst, all blue and gold, and many other tints
intermingling to our imaginative eyes, viewing it in the sunlight.

"Oh, Nell, what a beauty!" cried Jemmy, and hand in hand we drew near to
admire it, as it poised itself in mid air over our heads. To our
childish fancy it was a stranger bird, a wanderer from some foreign
clime.

"Oh, if I could sketch it!" I sighed.

"Oh, if I could catch it!" cried more matter-of-fact Jemmy; and then, as
the bird flew away, we followed it as if we were charmed, spell-bound.

Away and away, across the fields, up the steep hill-side, our backs to
the sun, our faces--ah, me! that pretty bird led us far astray; and now
we were in the copse, on the sloping hill-side. Thus our bird had wiled
us on; we heard it sing to us, as in merry laughter, as we wandered here
and there seeking it in the shady tangle, but we never found it, nor
caught a glimpse of it; we saw it wing its way thither, and that was
all. When we emerged upon the open downs again, the sun had set, the
cornfields below looked dim and gloomy, as if something were lost, dead,
and over the wild waste of downs, shadows were creeping and crawling.
And oh, how our little legs ached! We were fain to sit down and rest
awhile. What was worse, we had turned and twisted, and gone hither and
thither, till we did not know in what direction lay our home. We rose
and turned to right and left, east, west, north, and south, but those
dark, deepening shadows seemed to be creeping after us, and monsters
came crawling and stealing up the hill-side, and went we knew not
whither. Then a mist gathered over, not deep and blinding, but just
enough to make everything look unreal and terrible to us small, lonely
creatures.

"Oh, Jemmy, what is that?" cried I, as a great, dark something loomed
near us.

"Oh, I don't know," said he, in a frightened whisper; but he threw his
arm about me, his boy-nature strong within him.

Then the wind swept cold and bleak, bringing with it a low growl--at
least so it sounded to our poor frightened senses, and we fairly clung
to each other.

"That's wolves!" moaned Jemmy, while that great threatening something at
our side seemed to fade away, others stealing up and taking its place.

[Illustration: IN THE HARVEST FIELD.

"_JEMMY'S AND MY ADVENTURE_" (_p. 102_).]

"Wolves don't live in England," said I.

"They did when little William was a boy," returned Jemmy, and I, as I
remembered the tragic story of the