be; 'but I
think I have rather neglected Miss Charlecote for Mervyn, and I believe
she would like to have me alone.'

The solitude of the walk was a great boon, and there was healing in the
power of silence--the repose of not being forced to be lively. Summer
flowers had passed, but bryony mantled the bushes in luxuriant beauty,
and kingly teazles raised their diademed heads, and exultingly stretched
forth their sceptred arms. Purple heather mixed with fragrant thyme,
blue harebells and pale bents of quiver-grass edged the path, and
thistledown, drifting from the chalk uplands, lay like snow in the
hollows, or danced like living things on the path before her. A brood of
goldfinches, with merry twitter and flashing wings, flitted round a tall
milk thistle with variegated leaves and a little farther on, just at the
opening of a glade from the path, she beheld a huge dragon-fly, banded
with green, black, and gold, poised on wings invisible in their rapid
motion, and hawking for insects. She stood to watch, collecting
materials to please Miss Charlecote, and make a story for Maria.

'Stand still. He is upon you.'

She saw Miss Charlecote a few yards off, nearly on all-fours in the thymy
grass.

'Only a grasshopper. I've only once seen such a fellow. He makes
portentous leaps. There! on your flounce!'

'I have him! No! He went right over you!'

'I've got him under my handkerchief. Put your hand in my pocket--take
out a little wide-mouthed bottle. That's it. Get in, sir, it is of no
use to bite. There's an air-hole in the cork. Isn't he a beauty?'

'O, the lovely green! What saws he wears on his thighs! See the
delicate pink lining! What horns! and a quaint face, like a horse's.'

'"The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses." Not that this
is a locust, only a _gryllus_, happily for us.'

'What is the difference?'

'Long or short horns, since Bertha is not here to make me call them
antennae. I must take him home to draw, as soon as I have gathered some
willow for my puss. You are coming home with me?'

'I meant to drink tea with you, and be sent for in the evening.'

'Good child. I was almost coming to you, but I was afraid of Mervyn.
How has it been, my dear?'

Phoebe's 'he is very kind' was allowed to stand for the present, and
Honora led the way by a favourite path, which was new to Phoebe, making
the circuit of the Holt; sometimes dipping into a hollow, over which the
lesse