visitors had come to stay with him. They seemed to find out all sorts of new things that had never struck him before; pleasures and interests springing all about and close at hand which he had never thought of.

[Pg 89]

They found everything delightful; as the summer gradually faded into autumn, and the bright flowers grew scarcer and less tempting to gather, the wild fruit in its turn began to ripen. Day by day the children watched the blackberries with the greatest eagerness, as the small red heads steadily got rounder and deeper in colour, till at last one day some of the big people said in the children's hearing, "a couple of days' sunshine and the blackberries will be at their prime; there's a splendid show of them this year."

Nora and Hilary could scarcely keep from jumping with joy, and they made Cecil nearly as eager as themselves. The sun seemed to enter into their feelings, for the very next morning he showed a more smiling face than for some time past, and continued in this amiable humour for several days, so that the children were able on the third day to set off, armed with baskets nearly as big as themselves, for a regular good blackberrying.

All went well for some time. They had been told where and how far they might go, and though it took rather longer than they had expected, to fill even one of the baskets, they worked[Pg 90] on cheerfully, nowise disheartened, chattering to each other from time to time, when a strange thing happened.

[Pg 90]

Nora was just saying that the only thing she was ever afraid of in the woods was "snakes," and Cecil was assuring her that he was quite certain there were none in "our woods," when he was startled by her giving a little scream.

"What's the matter?" he called out, half thinking that a snake had appeared after all.

"Hush, Cecil, oh, hush!" said Nora in a low and startled voice; "come here, and you, Hilary, come close here, but don't make any noise."

Wondering, and a little frightened, the two boys crept through the bushes to her side.

"What is it, Nora?" they both whispered in an awestruck tone.

"I don't know," she replied. "Cecil, do you know of anything queer in these woods? Are there any dwarfs or—or creatures like in fairy stories? For I am sure I saw a very, very little black 

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