"Tell her it is very late, and I want her to come right up,--remember." "Yes mum," said Winnie, with unusual alacrity, and started off down the lane as fast as his copper-toed feet could carry him.

It was quite a long lane, and a very pleasant one in summer.

There was a row of hazel-nut bushes, always green and sweet, on one side, and a stone-wall on the other, with the broad leaves and tiny blossoms of a grape-vine trailing over it.

The lane opened into a wide field which had an apple-orchard at one end of it, and sloped down over quite a little hill into a piece of marshy ground, where ferns and white violets, anemones, and sweet-flag grew in abundance.

In the summer, the water was apt to dry up.