e, the snow fell. In the morning, a
covering of snow weighed on the rhododendron bushes.

"Shall we go out?" said Maggie.

She had lost some of her leader's sureness, and was now
tentative, a little in reserve from her friend.

They took the key of the gate and wandered into the park. It
was a white world on which dark trees and tree masses stood
under a sky keen with frost. The two girls went past the hall,
that was shuttered and silent, their footprints marking the snow
on the drive. Down the park, a long way off, a man was carrying
armfuls of hay across the snow. He was a small, dark figure,
like an animal moving in its unawareness.

Ursula and Maggie went on exploring, down to a tinkling,
chilly brook, that had worn the snow away in little scoops, and
ran dark between. They saw a robin glance its bright eyes and
burst scarlet and grey into the hedge, then some pertly-marked
blue-tits scuffled. Meanwhile the brook slid on coldly,
chuckling to itself.

The girls wandered across the snowy grass to where the
artificial fish-ponds lay under thin ice. There was a big tree
with a thick trunk twisted with ivy, that hung almost horizontal
over the ponds. Ursula climbed joyfully into this and sat amid
bosses of bright ivy and dull berries. Some ivy leaves were like
green spears held out, and tipped with snow. The ice was seen
beneath them.

Maggie took out a book, and sitting lower down the trunk
began to read Coleridge's "Christabel". Ursula half listened.
She was wildly thrilled. Then she saw Anthony coming across the
snow, with his confident, slightly strutting stride. His face
looked brown and hard against the snow, smiling with a sort of
tense confidence.

"Hello!" she called to him.

A response went over his face, his head was lifted in an
answering, jerking gesture.

"Hello!" he said. "You're like a bird in there."

And Ursula's laugh rang out. She answered to the peculiar,
reedy twang in his penetrating voice.

She did not think of Anthony, yet she lived in a sort of
connection with him, in his world. One evening she met him as
she was coming down the lane, and they walked side by side.

"I think it's so lovely here," she cried.

"Do you?" he said. "I'm glad you like it."

There was a curious confidence in his voice.

"Oh, I love it. What more does one want than to live in this
beautiful place, and make things grow in your garden. It is like
the Garden of Eden."

"Is it?" he said, with a littl