r threatened her by
day and by night, she lived beyond the usual period of a hare's
existence, partly because her early education was thorough and severe.
Thus taught, she would pause for an instant at every gap and gateway
before she passed through, and, if she found a net in her path, would
turn aside, creep along by the hedge, and seek an exit at another place.

The perils to which she had been exposed created a feeling of intense
restlessness, which harassed her throughout the winter months, and
caused her to travel long distances, by the loneliest lanes and fields,
to and from the moorland where now she had made her home. She remembered
the scent of a human being since her experiences with the keeper, and,
her powers of smell being wonderfully acute, was able to detect even the
faintest signs which indicated that her dread enemy--man--had crossed
her path. One night she smelt the touch of a hand on the grass-bents
near her "form," and found also that the herbage had been moved aside.
Though the scent was faint--the intruder having visited the spot soon
after the leveret had set out in quest of food--the cautious creature
forsook her lair, and spent the day in a sheltered retreat beside a heap
of dry and withered leaves near the outskirts of a copse on the slope
overlooking the moor.

Gradually she grew big and strong, becoming unusually fat as the autumn
advanced, so that she would be able, if required, to withstand the
rigour and the waste of a severe winter. Her coat was thick and
beautifully soft, for protection against cold and damp. But while she
increased in weight, she remained in hard condition because of her long
journeys and frequent change of quarters.

It happened, however, that her first winter was helpful to the welfare
of animal life in general. The heavy rains, it is true, greatly
distressed the leveret. The nights were so dark, and the constant patter
of the rain so interfered with even her highly trained powers of
hearing, that, while the wet weather lasted, she seldom dared to leave
the neighbourhood of her favourite resort, but crouched in the grass at
the margin of the copse, and tried to obtain a meal as best she could
from the sodden herbage.

Though on certain occasions Puss might have been discovered in hiding
on the marsh, yet there, whenever possible, she chose a dry spot for her
"seat." She loved, best of all, the undulating hills far above the
river-mists, which, chilled at nightfal