s."

"Never mind, you've got across."

"But you might sympathize."

"Haven't time. We shall have to hurry up if we mean to be back before
the others."

"Did you think the cow was Teddie calling you?" laughed Hattie, who,
having got her own trial over, could afford to jest at other people's
misfortunes.

"You'd have jumped yourself. Oh dear, I spilt most of my snowdrops,
though I did tie the basket round my neck!"

"Never mind; you can't fish them out of the stream now. I'll give you
some of mine. Here, take these," said Rona. "I've nobody to send them
to," she added, half to herself, as she climbed the bank.

"Oh, thanks awfully! I always send Mother a big bunch. She looks forward
to them. I've brought a cardboard box from home on purpose to pack them
in, because the cook runs quite out of starch-boxes. Some of the girls
last year had to wrap theirs just in brown paper. If you don't want
yours, can you spare me a few more?"

"I'll keep just these to put in my bedroom, and you may have the rest if
you like," replied Rona, stalking ahead.

Every now and then the sense of her loneliness smote her. She would
probably be the only girl in the school who was not sending flowers
away to-night. How different it would be if she had anybody in England
who took an interest in her and cared to receive her snowdrops!

"It's no use crying for the moon," she decided, blinking hard lest she
should betray symptoms of weakness before her juniors. "When a thing
can't be helped it can't, and there's an end of it."

"Cuckoo! Corona Margarita! Do wait for us! You walk like the wind."

"Or as if a bull were chasing you," panted Hattie, overtaking her and
claiming a supporting arm. "Do you see where we've got ourselves to? The
only way out of this is to go straight through the Glynmaen Wood."

"Well, and why shouldn't we go through the Glynmaen Wood? Is it any
different to any other wood?"

"No, only they're horribly particular about trespassing. They stick up
all kinds of notices warning people off."

"What rubbish! Why, in New Zealand we go where we like."

"Oh, I dare say, in New Zealand!"

"Look, there's a notice up there," said Winnie, pointing over the hedge
to a tree whereon was nailed a weather-stained board bearing the
inhospitable legend: "Trespassers Beware".

Rona stared at it quite belligerently.

"I should like to pull it down," she observed. "What right has anybody
to try to keep places all to themselves?"