ly, and with extraordinary earnestness. "Come further back into
the wood," she whispered. "Here, behind this thicket;--here no one can
see us from the lane. Hark! Can you hear what those voices are
saying."

No words could be distinguished; but the boys soon came running back,
and, to Marie's great relief, followed by no one.

Her brothers were full of what they had seen. The cavalcade was very
grand. The great coach looked quite full of ladies with their large
white hats, covered with feathers, and flowers, and ribbons. Some more
ladies in light blue riding-habits rode the most beautiful sleek horses;
and so did the gentlemen. One of the young gentlemen stopped, or tried
to stop; but his horse would not stand, but kept wheeling round and
round the whole time he was speaking to them. He asked them whether
they did not live in this wood; and when they said, "No," he asked
whether somebody did not live in it. Upon their saying that they knew
of no inhabitant, he further inquired whether, if he came bird-nesting,
or with his fishing-rod, they did not think he should find some sort of
habitation among the trees. And then he asked whether they were not the
Count's peasantry; and what their names were, and how many there were in
the family; and whether the bailiff was kind to them. By that time, the
gentleman's horse began to bolt across the lane, and all the party but
one groom were almost out of sight; so the gentleman took off his hat,
and bowed down to his saddle, looking very funny,--not mocking, but in
play, and galloped off; and the groom laughed and nodded, and galloped
after his master.

Charles now turned away, and with desperate tugs pulled up the stakes he
had driven with so much satisfaction, and threw them into the thicket.
He filled the holes, scratched up with brambles the ground he and the
boys had trodden, and strewed it over with green twigs, so that no token
of his late labour was left to attract the eye of the passer-by. The
boys looked ruefully on his proceedings; and Marie appeared to forget
that her mother wanted her, as she gazed. She soon, however, observed
that the lane was empty now, and they must be gone. Sending her
brothers on before, she stayed one moment to entreat Charles to be
patient under the separation and delay of a few days, and proposed to
him that he should be found, that day week, at a certain cave in the
chalk-hill, two miles off, where she would send to let him kno