r scabious cast a tint like the gray of a cloud; sometimes rising on
a knoll so as to look down on the rounded tops of the trees, following
the undulations of the grounds; and beyond them the green valley, winding
stream, and harvest fields, melting into the chalk downs on the horizon.
To Phoebe, all had the freshness of novelty, with the charm of
familiarity, and without the fatigue of admiration required by the
show-places to which Mervyn had taken her. Presently Miss Charlecote
opened the wicket leading to an oak coppice. There was hardly any
brushwood. The ground was covered with soft grass and round elastic
cushions of gray lichen. There were a few brackens, and here and there
the crimson midsummer men, but the copsewood consisted of the redundant
shoots of the old, gnarled, knotted stumps, covered with handsome foliage
of the pale sea-green of later summer, and the leaves far exceeding in
size those either of the sapling or the full-sized tree--vigorous
playfulness of the poor old wounded stocks.

'Ah!' said Honor, pausing, 'here I found my purple emperor, sunning
himself, his glorious wings wide open, looking black at first, but
turning out to be of purple-velvet, of the opaque mysterious beauty which
seems nobler than mere lustre.'

'Did you keep him? I thought that was against your principles.'

'I only mocked him by trying to paint him. He was mine because he came
to delight me with the pleasure of having seen him, and the remembrance
of him that pervades the path. It was just where Humfrey always told me
the creatures might be found.'

'Was Mr. Charlecote fond of natural history?' asked Phoebe, shyly.

'Not as natural history, but he knew bird, beast, insect, and tree, with
a friendly hearty intimacy, such as Cockney writers ascribe to peasants,
but which they never have. While he used the homeliest names, a
dish-washer for a wagtail, cuckoo's bread-and-cheese for wood-sorrel
(partly I believe to tease me), he knew them thoroughly, nests, haunts,
and all.'

Phoebe could not help quoting the old lines, 'He prayeth well that loveth
well both man and bird and beast.'

'Yes, and some persons have a curious affinity with the gentle and good
in creation--who can watch and even handle a bird's nest without making
it be deserted, whom bees do not sting, and horses, dogs, and cats love
so as to reveal their best instincts in a way that seems fabulous. In
spite of the Lyra Innocentium, I think this is l