re,"
and he took a triumphant bite of the cake.

"How did you get there?" asked Richard.

"The fairy godmother showed me," was Sandy's reply.

There is such a thing as nursery honour. We respected each other's
pretendings unless we were very cross, but I didn't disbelieve in his
fairy godmother. I only said, "You shouldn't talk with your mouth
full," to snub him for making a secret about his field.

Sandy is very good-tempered. He only laughed and said, "Come along.
It's much cooler out now. The sun's going down."

He took us along Gipsy Lane. We had been there once or twice, for
walks, but not very often, for there was some horrid story about it
which rather frightened us. I do not know what it was, but it was a
horrid one. Still we had been there, and I knew it quite well. At the
end of it there is a stile, by which you go into a field, and at the
other end you get over another stile, and find yourself in the high
road.

"If this is our field, Sandy," said I, when we got to the first stile,
"I'm very sorry, but it really won't do. I know that lots of people
come through it. We should never be quiet here."

Sandy laughed. He didn't speak, and he didn't get over the stile; he
went through a gate close by it leading into a little sort of bye-lane
that was all mud in winter and hard cart-ruts in summer. I had never
been up it, but I had seen hay and that sort of thing go in and come
out of it.

He went on and we followed him. The ruts were very disagreeable to
walk on, but presently he led us through a hole in the hedge, and we
got into a field. It was a very bare-looking field, and went rather
uphill. There was no path, but Sandy walked away up it, and we went
after him. There was another hedge at the top, and a stile in it. It
had very rough posts, one much longer than the other, and the cross
step was gone, but there were two rails, and we all climbed over. And
when we got to the other side, Sandy leaned against the big post and
gave a wave with his right hand and said, "This is our field."

It sloped down hill, and the hedges round it were rather high, with
awkward branches of blackthorn sticking out here and there without any
leaves, and with the blossom lying white on the black twigs like snow.
There were cowslips all over the field, but they were thicker at the
lower end, which was damp. The great heat of the day was over. The sun
shone still, but it shone low down and made such splendid shadows that
we