ossibilities, I think I should see my way into the
convent,--and escape the ill humour.'

'But Lucia would not be shut up from you, but from the
grandee. It would only make matters worse to bring her out.'

'Not for me,' said Rollo. 'It might for the book, because, as
you say, then the interest would be gone. Do you think the
people in a book are real people?--while you are reading it?'

'Not quite--they might have been real. I don't feel just as if
I should if I knew they were.'

'In that case the interest would be less?' he said, with a
laughing look.

'Yes--or at least different. There are so many things to
qualify your interest in real living people.'

'Yes. For instance in real life the people who cannot help
being in difficulties never interest me as much as the people
who get out of them; and so I think most novels are stupid,
because the men and women are all real to me. There!' he said,
pulling up as they reached the top of an ascent, 'there are no
difficulties in your way here. What do you think of that?'

The hill-top gave a wide view over a rich, cultivated,
inhabited country; its beauty was in the wide, generous eye-
view and the painter's colours that decked it; for which,
broken ground in front and distant low hills gave play to the
slant sunbeams. Warm, rich, inviting, looked every inch of
those wide-spread square miles.

'Do you know where you are?' said he in an enjoying tone.

'I suppose near home,--but it's not familiar yet.'

'No, you are some miles from home. Over there to the west,
lies Dr. Maryland's--but you can't see it in this light. It's
two miles away. Do you see, further to the north, standing
high on a hill, a white house-front that catches the sun?'

'Yes.'

'Mme. Lasalle's, Moscheloo. It's a pretty place--nothing like
Chickaree. When we reach the next turning you will catch a
glimpse of Crocus in the other direction--do you know what
Crocus is?'

'O yes, the village. Our house was brown, I remember that,--and
as you go up the hill Mr. Falkirk's cottage is just by the
roadside. Did you tell them to leave Mrs. Saddler there?'

'She will tell them herself, I fancy. Crocus is the place
where you will be expected to buy sugar and spice. It is some
four miles from Chickaree on that side, and we are about five
miles from it on this;' and as he spoke he set the horses in
motion. 'I sent on a rescript to Mrs. Bywank, bidding her on
her peril to be in order to receive you this