Just here the ground was bare except for the carpet of brown needles, but the next moment the path became more tangled and sloped rather steeply.

They could distinctly hear a dog bark.

"Take him to the peep-hole," whispered Cedric in his sister's ear, and Miss Templeton nodded and stepped off the path; then she beckoned Malcolm to look through some interlacing branches which formed a natural arch.
It was a charming little sylvan scene that met his eyes.

The spot had been fitly called Ophelia's Pool.

The small pond was shut in with rowans and thickets of alder and blackberry bushes, and on the pond itself some water-lilies and other aquatic plants were growing.