housekeeper, might pack our provisions, and we could each carry our own. It would not tire you too much to walk so far?"

"Oh, no; especially if we rested the whole day in the wood, and I know all the pleasantest spots: I know where we could get nuts in nutting time; I know where wild strawberries abound; I know certain lonely, quite untrodden glades, carpeted with strange mosses, some yellow as if gilded, some a sober gray, some gem-green. I know groups of trees that ravish the eye with their perfect, picture-like effects: rude oak, delicate birch, glossy beech, clustered in contrast; and ash trees stately as Saul, standing isolated, and superannuated wood-giants clad in bright shrouds of ivy. Miss Keeldar, I could guide you."

"You would be dull with me alone?"

"I should not. I think we should suit: and what third person is there whose presence would not spoil our pleasure?"

"Indeed, I know of none about our own ages—no lady at least, and as to gentlemen——"

"An excursion becomes quite a different thing when there are gentlemen of the party," interrupted Caroline.

"I agree with you—quite a different thing to what we were proposing."

"We were going simply to see the old trees, the old ruins; to pass a day in old times, surrounded by olden silence, and above all by quietude."