And every now and then there were splendid days, when the children and their father and mother were out all day long, wandering over the mountains, or walking over to Aunt Emma's or tramping along the well-known roads to Wanwick on one side, and the little village of Rydal and Rydal Lake on the other.

They had another row on Windermere; and one fine evening Mr.
Norton borrowed a friend's boat, and they went out fishing for perch on Rydal Lake, the loveliest little lake in the world, lying softly in a green mountain cup, and dotted with islands, which seemed to the children when they landed on them like little bits of fairyland dropped into the blue water.
[Illustration: "Haymaking"] And then! crown of delights! came the haymaking.

There were long fine days, when the six small creatures--Milly, Olly, Becky, Tiza, Bessie, and Charlie--followed John Backhouse and his men about in the hayfields from early morning till evening, helping to make the hay, or simply rolling about like a parcel of kittens in the flowery fragrant heaps.
Aunt Emma was often at Ravensnest, and the children learned to love her better and better, so that even wild little Olly would remember to bring her stool, and carry her shawl, and change her plate at dinner; and Milly, who was always clinging to somebody, was constantly puzzled to know whose pocket to sit in, mother's or Aunt Emma's.
Then there was the farmyard, the cows, and the milking, and the chickens.

Everything about them seemed delightful to Milly and Olly, and the top of everything was reached when one evening John Backhouse mounted both the children on his big carthorse Dobbin, and they and Dobbin together dragged the hay home in triumph.
And now they had only one week more to stay at Ravensnest.

But that week was a most important week, for it was to contain no less a day than Milly's birthday.