And after
the first few hours the scenery had little to attract. The
country became an ordinary farming district, with no
distinctive features. Not that there be not sweet things to
interest in such a landscape, for a mind free enough and eyes
unspoiled. There are tints of colouring in a flat pasture
field, to feed the eye that can find them; there are forms and
shadows in a rolling arable country, sweet and changing and
satisfying. There are effects in tufts of spared woodland, and
colours in wild vegetation, and in the upturned brown and
umber of fields of ploughed earth, and in the grey lichened
rocks and the clear tints of their broken edges. There are the
associations and indications of human life, too; tokens of
thrift and of poverty, of weary toil and of well-to-do
activity. Where the ploughs go, and the ploughmen; where the
cattle are driven afield; where the farmyards tell how they
are housed and kept; where the women sit with their milking
pails or make journeys to the spring; where flowers trim the
house-fronts, or where the little yard-gate says that
everything, like itself, hangs by one hinge. A good deal of
life stories may be read by the way in a stage coach; but not
until life has unfolded to us, perhaps, its characters; and so
Wych Hazel did not read much and thought the ride tedious and
long. When she turned to her companions, Mr. Falkirk was
thoughtful and silent, Mr. Rollo silent and seemingly self-
absorbed, and if she looked at the other occupants of the
coach--Wych Hazel immediately looked out again.

The second day began under new auspices. None of their former
fellow travellers remained with them; save only Rollo and the
servants; and the empty places were taken by a couple of
country women, one young and rustic, the other elderly and
ditto. That was all that Wych Hazel saw of them. The fact that
one of the women presently fell to eating gingerbread and the
other molasses candy, effectually turned all Miss Kennedy's
attention out of doors.

The cleared country was left behind; and the coach entered a
region of undisturbed forest, through which it had many miles
to travel before reaching civilization again. The view was
shut in. The trees waved overhead and stretched along the road
endlessly, too thick for the eye to penetrate far. The coach
rumbled on monotonously. The smell of pines and other green
things came sweet and odorous, but the day was hot, and
everything was dry; the dust rose