l concluded to take a walk about the farm during the time
which they were allowed to spend in play, before the school was to
begin. So she and Bella put on their bonnets, and bidding Mary Erskine
good morning, they sallied forth. As they came out at the great stoop
door their attention was arrested by the sound of a cow-bell. The
sound seemed to come from the barn-yard.

"Ah," said Mary Bell, "there is Queen Bess going to pasture this
morning. How glad I was to see her yesterday in the woods! Let us go
and see her now."

So saying she led the way around the corner of the house, by a
pleasant path through the high grass that was growing in the yard,
toward the barns. Bella followed her. They passed through a gate, then
across a little lane, then through a gate on the other side of the
lane, which led into the barn-yards. The barns, like the house, were
built of logs, but they were very neatly made, and the yards around
them were at this season of the year dry and green.

Mary and Bella walked on across the barn-yard until they got to the
back side of the barn, when they found Thomas turning the cows into a
little green lane which led to the pasture. It was not very far to the
pasture bars, and so Mary Bell proposed that they should go and help
Thomas drive the cows. They accordingly went on, but they had not gone
far before they came to a brook, which here flowed across the lane.
The cows walked directly through the brook, while Thomas got across it
by stepping over some stones at one side. Mary Bell thought that the
spaces were a little too wide for Bella to jump over, so she concluded
not to go any farther in that direction.

Bella then proposed that they should go and see the new house. This
Mary Bell thought would be an excellent plan if Bella's mother would
give them leave. They accordingly went in to ask her. They found her
in the back stoop, employed in straining the milk which Thomas had
brought in. She was straining it into great pans. She said that she
should like to have the children go and see the new house very much
indeed, and she gave them the key, so that they might go into it. The
children took the key and went across the fields by a winding path
until they came out into the main road again, near the new house. The
house was in a very pleasant place indeed. There was a green yard in
front of it, and a place for a garden at one side. At the other side
was a wide yard open to the road, so that persons