, bathed her flushed cheeks in the brook,
took down her hair, and braided it in two long school-girl braids, which
hung down below her waist; then she tied her straw hat to a branch,
pinned her neck-tie on the brim, took off her linen cuffs, and laid them
within together with her gloves, and leaving the tin plant case and the
trowel on the bank, started on her search. Up and down, up and down,
peering into every cranny, standing on next to nothing, swinging herself
from rock to rock; making acquaintance with several very unpleasant rock
spiders, and hastily constructing bridges for them of small twigs, so
that they could cross from her skirt to their home ledge in safety;
finding a trickling spring, and drinking from it; now half way down the
ravine, now three-quarters; and still no walking-leaf. She sat down on a
jutting crag to take breath an instant, and watched a bird on a tree
branch near by. He was one of those little brown songsters that sing as
follows:

[Illustration: Musical notation]

Seeing her watching him, he now chanted his little anthem in his best
style.

"Very well," said Anne, aloud.

"Oh no; only so-so," said a voice below. She looked down, startled, It
was Ward Heathcote.

[Illustration: "SHE BATHED HER FLUSHED CHEEK."]

CHAPTER XIV.

"From beginning to end it was all undeniable nonsense; but not
necessarily the worse for that."--NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

Heathcote was sitting under a tree by the brook-side, as though he had
never been anywhere else.

"When did you come?" said Anne, looking down from her perch.

"Fifteen minutes or so ago," he answered, looking up from his couch.

"_Why_ did you come?"

"To see you, of course."

"No; I can not believe that. The day is too warm."

"You, at any rate, look cool enough."

"It is cool up here among the rocks; but it must be intense out on the
high-road."

"I did not come by the high-road."

"How, then, did you come?"

"Across the fields."

"Why?"

"Miss Douglas, were you born in New Hampshire? As I can not call all
this information you require up hill, I shall be obliged to come up
myself."

As he rose, Anne saw that he was laden with her dinner basket and shawl,
her plant case and trowel, and her straw hat and its contents, which he
balanced with exaggerated care. "Oh, leave them all there," she called
down, laughingly.

But no, Heathcote would not; he preferred to bring them all with him.
When he reached he