charge for the afternoon.

Dan had fallen out of his perambulator when quite a tiny baby, and had
twisted his back in some way, so that he would never be tall and strong
like Stephen and Philip, or sturdy and straight like Tom; but he was a
very happy little boy all the same, after a strange, quiet fashion of
his own, and he liked best of all to be alone with Norah in the woods
or by the river, when they would make up all sorts of fancies about
queer little elves and fairies who, they said, lived in the trees or
bushes, and in the sticklebacks' nests in the river.

It was so warm in the wood, this afternoon, that it felt almost like
summer as the children hunted for chestnuts among the leaves, Dan
leaning out of his chair and poking about with a walking stick, and
Norah bringing the burrs to him as she found them, so that he might
break them open and thread the nuts on to a piece of string he had
brought with him.

"Dan," said Norah suddenly, when they had found quite a lot of
chestnuts and were beginning to be rather tired of looking for them,
"shall we go and see if the gap in the fence is still there? It's
quite early still, and it's not so very far away."

"Oh, yes," said Dan. "It's such a long time since we've been there.
Do you think, if it's not filled up, we might go in just for a minute?"

Norah shook here head.

"No, I don't think we can," she said. "You know father said we had
been trespassing when we went there before, and nobody lived there
then, so I suppose it would be _more_ trespassing still if we went now;
that's why we've never been to look at it all this time, because I knew
if we did we should want to go in."

Dan sighed.

"And however much we want, this afternoon, we mustn't go in," he said.
"I almost wish the people hadn't come to the Grange, Norah; it used to
be so nice when we used to go and sit on our own little bank there, and
nobody else ever came."

"But we couldn't go now, even if it was empty," said Norah, "because
father said---- Oh, Dan!" she exclaimed, breaking off suddenly, "the
gap is still there! Do you think I might peep through?"

"Yes," said Dan. "_That's_ not trespassing. People often stop and
look in at our gate, and we don't mind a bit. Do go and look in,
Norah; you can leave me here in the chair, and if it looks _very_ nice
you must come and help me down the bank just to peep through once more."

Norah crept through the bushes cautiously, and popped her he