you like. You see those trees over there? All that is forest; and then there is a bit of wild moorland, and then more trees; and there is a pine wood, with such a sweet smell. It’s all quite close, and I see it every day. It isn’t very exciting when you see it every day. Your eyes need not shine like that. You had much better take things quietly, especially as you are such a very thin boy. Aunt Katharine says thin people should never get excited. She says it wears them out. Well, if you must come into the forest I suppose you must; but would you not like something to eat first? I know what we are to have for tea. Shall I tell you?”
“Yes,” said Phil; “tell me when we have got under the trees; tell me when I am looking up through the branches for the birds and the squirrels. You have not such gay birds as ours, for I watched yours when I was coming in the train from Southampton; but oh! don’t they sing!”
“You are a very queer boy,” said Kitty. “Birds and squirrels and forest trees, when you might be hearing about delicious frosted cake and jam rolly-polies. Well, take my hand and let’s run into the forest; let’s get it over, if we must get it over. I’ll take you down to the Avon to fish to-morrow. I like fishing – don’t you?”
“Yes,” said Phil. “I like nearly everything. Do you fish with flies or bait?”
“Oh, with horrid bait! that is the worst of it; but I generally get Robert – one of our grooms – to bait my lines.”
The children were now under the shade of the trees, and Kitty, after running about until she was tired, climbed into one of the branches of a wide-spreading beech tree and rocked herself in a very contented manner backward and forward. Phil was certainly a very queer little boy, but she was quite convinced he must be her real true cousin, that he was not a make-believe, that he would stay on at Avonsyde as the heir, and that she would always have a companion of her own age to play with.
“He will get tired of the forest by and by,” she said to herself, “and then he will like best to play with me, and we can fish all day together. How jolly that will be! What a good thing it is that he is so nearly my own age, and that he is not older; for if he were he would go every where with Rachel and be her friend. I should not like that at all,” concluded the little girl, with a very selfish though natural sigh of satisfaction.
Presently Phil – having wandered about to his heart’s content, having ascertained the color of several birds which sang over his head, having treasured up the peculiar quality of their different notes, and having ascertained beyond all doubt that the English forest was quite the quaintest and most lovely place in the world – came back and climbed into the tree by Kitty’s side.
“I’d like him to see it awfully,” he said.
“Who, Phil?”
“I can’t tell you – that’s my secret. Kitty, you’ll never find that I shall get accustomed to the forest – I mean so accustomed that I shan’t want to come here. Oh, never, never! A place like this must always have something new to show you. Kitty, can you imitate all the birds’ notes yet?”
“I can’t imitate one of them,” said Kitty, with an impatient frown coming between her eyebrows.
“But I know what I want to be doing, and I only wish you had the same want.”
“Perhaps I have. What is it?”
“Oh, no, you haven’t. You’re just like the goody-goody, awfully learned boys of the story-book. I do wish you wouldn’t go into raptures about stupid trees and birds and things!”
Phil’s little pale face flushed.
“Rupert – I mean – I mean my dearest friend – a boy you know nothing about, Kitty – never spoke about its being goody-goody to love things of this sort, and he is manly if you like. I can’t help loving them. But what is your want, Kitty?”
“Oh, to have my mouth crammed full of jam rolly-poly! I am so hungry!”
“So am I too. Let’s run back to the house.”
When Philip and Kitty had gone off together for their first exploring expedition, when the two little strangers to one another had clasped hands and gone out through the open hall-door and down the shady lawns together, Rachel had followed them for a few paces.
She stood still shading her eyes with one hand as she gazed after their retreating figures; then whistling to an English terrier of the name of Jupiter, she ran round to the stables and encountered one of the grooms.
“Robert, put the side-saddle on Surefoot and come with me into the forest. It is a lovely evening, and I am going for a long ride.”
Robert, a very young and rather sheepish groom, looked appealingly at the bright and pretty speaker.
“My mother is ill, Miss Rachel, and Peter do say as I may go home and see her. Couldn’t you ride another evening, missy?”
“No, I’m going to ride to-night. I wish to and I’m going; but you need not come with me; it is quite unnecessary. I should like nothing so well as having a long ride on Surefoot all alone.”
“But the ladies do say, Miss Rachel, as you are not to ride in the forest by yourself. Oh, if you will go, missy, why, I must just put off seeing my poor mother until to-morrow.”
Rachel stamped her foot impatiently.
“Nonsense, Robert!” she said. “I am going to ride alone. I will explain matters to my aunts, so you need not be at all afraid. Put the side-saddle on Surefoot at once!”
Robert’s conscience was easily appeased. He ran off and quickly returned with the rough little forest pony, and Rachel, mounting, cantered off.
She was an excellent rider and had not a scrap of fear in her nature. She entered the forest by the long straight avenue; and Surefoot, delighted to feel his feet on the smooth, velvety sward, trotted along gayly.
“Now I am free!” said the girl. “How delightful it is to ride all by myself. I will go a long, long way this beautiful evening.”
It was a perfect summer’s evening, and Rachel was riding through scenery of exquisite beauty. Birds sang blithely to her as she flew lightly over the ground; squirrels looked down at her from among the branches of the forest oaks; many wild flowers smiled up at her, and all nature seemed to sympathize with her gay youth and beauty.
She was a romantic, impulsive child, and lived more or less in a world of her own imaginings.
The forest was the happiest home in the world to Rachel; Avonsyde was well enough, but no place was like the forest itself. She had a strong impression that it was still peopled by fairies. She devoured all the legends that Mrs. Newbolt, her aunt’s maid, and John Eyre, one of the agisters of the forest, could impart to her. Both these good people had a lurking belief in ghosts and fairies. Eyre swore that he had many and many a time seen the treacherous little Jack-o’-lanterns. He told horrible stories of strangers who were lured into bogs by these deceitful little sprites. But Mrs. Newbolt had a far more wonderful and exciting tale to tell than this; for she spoke of a lady who, all in green, flitted through the forest – a lady with a form of almost spiritual etherealness, and with such a lovely face that those who were fortunate enough to see her ever after retained on their own countenances a faint reflection of her rare beauty. Rachel had heard of this forest lady almost from the first moment of her residence at Avonsyde. She built many brilliant castles in the air about her, and she and Kitty most earnestly desired to see her. Of course they had never yet done so, but their belief in her was not a whit diminished, and they never went into the forest without having a dim kind of hope that they might behold the lady.
Newbolt said that she appeared to very few, but she admitted that on one or two occasions of great and special moment she had revealed herself to some fair dames of the house of Lovel. She never appeared to two people together, and in consequence Rachel always longed to go into the forest alone. She felt excited to-night, and she said to herself more than once, “I wonder if I shall see her. She comes on great occasions; surely this must be a great occasion if the long-looked-for heir has come to Avonsyde. I do wonder if that little boy is the heir!”
Rachel