CHAPTER VI.

"Tell me, where is fancy bred,
In the heart, or in the head,
How begot, how fashioned?

Reply, reply!"

SHAKSPEARE.

HE long lane which led from the village to King's Marden church was a favourite walk of Margie's at all times of the year.

It was a steep winding path with broad strips of grass on either side, and high spreading hedges, which looked as if they had never known the hedger's bill-hook. These hedgerows were always a delight to the eye. Even in the winter months they were not altogether ugly, since bushes of ivy and holly hung among the bare twigs and withered bracken, and when the hoar-frost came to deck briars and brambles with fantastic wreaths, and the snow lay in drifts of virgin whiteness along the banks, they wore a fairy-like aspect. With the

first breath of spring a change passed over the scene. First the dry boughs began to put out tiny red boughs, and the budding violets lifted their heads in mossy places. Then the tender green shoots appeared, the young fern opened its fronds to the sun, primroses, cowslips, and delicate white anemones followed each other in sweet succession, and cuckoos and blackbirds answered each other from the upper branches of the trees. Soon the crab and hawthorn broke into blossom, and wild convolvulus began to trail its creepers over the grassy banks. July brought the wild clematis, the honeysuckle, and dog-roses with their varying tints of pale and deep pink, and all through the summer months the hedgerows were one tangled growth of

sweetness.

And now that the autumn sun had touched the hips and haws with crimson, that the maples were burning a fiery gold, and the briony hung its clusters of brilliant scarlet among the changing hues of the turning leaves and the darker purple of the elderberries, they were more beautiful than ever.

Margie thought so as she wandered idly up the lane with her knitting in her hand, stopping now and then to pick a blackberry which had escaped the keen eyes of the village children, and enjoying the warm sunshine which still brightened these October days.

It was some little time since she had walked this way, and she remembered how the very last time she had been looking for blackberries Mr. Norman had met her under the big ash, and had helped her fill her basket.

That day she had talked and laughed freely with him, without the least suspicion of the strong tide of feelings she was stirring in his breast. A whole week had passed since the memorable afternoon on which her father and Essie had driven to Wyndover, and since then she had not seen the schoolmaster again. Indeed she had carefully avoided occasions of meeting him, and he on his part had not been once seen passing the carpenter's house.

And now, woman-like, Margie was beginning to wonder if he really loved her as well as he thought he did that day, if her face still followed him, as he had said, in his sleeping and his waking hours. Could a man love like that once and always? was a point on which she felt curious; for Margery's notions of mankind were of a somewhat vague and not exactly an exalted nature. And yet she had a dim sense that if men were ever cast on this mould, if their love could be more than the chance liking of a week or a day, Mr. Norman's would stand the test. Perhaps, although scarcely conscious herself of the feeling, he would seem to her less worthy of respect if he could change so easily.

While she was turning the subject over in her mind, she saw a black figure coming towards her, and immediately recognized her aunt's friend, Mrs. Connor.

She did not stop as she passed by, but Margie, moved by a sudden impulse to be gracious, wished her good afternoon, and observed how warm the weather was for October; upon which Mrs. Connor returned her greeting with a few pleasant words, and a smile as unlike as possible the sad and timid expression her face generally wore.

"After all, old Martin's wrong," Margie said to herself. "She's not crazy, and what's more, she's not a bit like Aunt Prue. Why in the world she has made friends with her, I can't imagine. I rather like her look on the whole, I begin to think, although I shan't tell Aunt Prue so."

After that Margery walked on picking blackberries and brown and red leaves to put in her hat, without meeting any fresh faces, till she reached the top of the hill and sat down to rest on the low churchyard wall looking over the plain. This old red wall, overgrown with ivy and stonecropt, was always a favourite spot of hers. On hot summer days she and Essie would bring their work and sit there for hours, while the bees in the limes of the Manor-house close by kept up their long murmur, and sunlight and shadow flitted across

the broad stretch of grass lands before them. That wide expanse of view was of itself a delight to her eye. She liked to look at the homesteads and villages scattered amongst the trees, at Wyndover town and steeple, which were the furthest limits of her little world. But most of all she liked to look at the far line of horizon reaching beyond, and to let her thoughts wander into that larger world without, where the great tide of life was beating against shores and rocks unknown to her. Must not this be the longing of every fresh and untried spirit to venture out into that unexplored realm and see for itself what was passing there? And yet there were some to whom that longing could never have come.

There was Miss Fairbairn, for instance, who with all her money and independence of character had been content to spend her whole life under the roof of the old Manor-house, and had scarcely ever stirred beyond the bounds of King's Marden.

For her own part, Margie was determined this should not be the case. Her life should be no monotonous course, flat and dull as the road to Wyndover; but active and varied, full of pleasing stir and excitement, of unexpected turnings and happy surprises.

In the midst of this castle-building, Margie was startled by a sudden gust of wind which blew back