were none the less lovely for that; the lack of foliage
revealed the delicate tracery of their boughs and the beauty of their
straight stems, which, in one or two terraced glades, were like the
columns and shafts of some great cathedral. The sun shining down the
glen gave a soft purplish tint to the bare twigs, and brought out in
bolder contrast the deep dark green of the innumerable masses of ivy
that had utterly taken possession of and choked some of the trees
supporting them.

"Isn't it glorious? I always say our fells need a great deal of
beating," said Meg, who was an enthusiast over her native county. "I
don't believe there's a wood equal to this anywhere!" and she began to
sing the old north-country ditty:

"A north-countree maid
Up to London had strayed,
Although with her nature it did not agree.
She wept and she sighed,
And she bitterly cried:
'I wish once again in the north I could be!
Oh! the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree,
They all grow so green in the north countree!'"

"Don't know whether you'll get Gipsy to agree with you; she ought to be
a dab critic of scenery by now," grunted Donald.

"Oh, it's lovely!" said Gipsy, who was enjoying herself immensely. "Of
course it's quite, quite different from America, or Australia, or South
Africa. It's smaller, but it's prettier in its own way. It looks much
more cultivated."

"Ah! wait till you get right out on the moor at the top. You won't
insult that by calling it cultivated."

The woods were soon left behind, and the pathway led ever upwards, first
through a tangle of heather and bilberry and gorse; then, higher still,
over short, fine, slippery tracts of grass. They were reaching the upper
region of the fell, where the hard rock cropped out into great
splintered crags, weathered by countless winter storms, and where no
bushes or softer herbage could face the struggle for existence. So far
the walk had been comparatively easy, but now the footpath had
disappeared, and they were obliged to trust to their knowledge of
mountaineering. The top still towered above them a very long way off,
and they calculated it would need a two hours' climb before they could
reach the particular crag that marked the extreme summit.

Donald assumed the leadership of the party, and, scanning the
mountainside with what he called an Alpine eye, decided which would be
their best cou