, which, fringed with elm and
birch, wound through the village that lay on both sides of it, the
river being crossed in two or three places by rustic bridges. From the
point on the hillside which generally formed the limit of their walk,
and where they used to sit on a mossy stone to rest, they had an
extensive view over the surrounding country, diversified with
corn-fields, orchards, and deep green woods, and dotted with
farmhouses, while close at their feet lay the white cluster of
village-houses, with a few of higher pretensions scattered here and
there on the green slopes by the river-side, among their shrubberies
and embowering trees.

The fields were beginning to wear the deeper and richer hues of
approaching autumn, and it was a perpetual pleasure to watch the
rippling motion of the golden grain waving in the breeze, or the rapid
changes of light and shade on the fields and woods, as the clouds
passed swiftly over the sky. To watch these were their morning
pleasures; but better still, perhaps, they loved the quiet sunset
hours, when the glowing tints of the sky seemed to clothe the
landscape in an unearthly glory, and then gradually each bright hue
would fade out from the sky and from the land below, leaving the scene
to the solemn repose of the shadowy evening, broken only by the
flitting fireflies, or to the flood of silver light shed by the rising
moon. But Amy was never to be allowed to be out in the night air, so
that their rambles had to be over before the damp night dews. They
generally found Mrs. Browne standing at the gate, awaiting their
return, anxious lest her charge should have ventured to remain out too
long.

More than a week of their stay had passed rapidly by, when, one
evening that Lucy and Amy were spending in wandering by the river, the
former suddenly recognised approaching them the familiar form of her
classmate, Miss Eastwood, the winner of the first history prize. The
recognition was of course mutual, and in the surprise of meeting so
unexpectedly, and in explanations of how it had come about, the two
girls exchanged more words than they had ever done when in the same
classes at Mrs. Wilmot's.

"And you did not know Oakvale was my home?" said Mary Eastwood, when
Lucy had told how she and her cousin came to be there. Lucy had never
heard where Miss Eastwood's home was, and it had not occurred to her
to connect the Dr. Eastwood, of whom Mrs. Browne often spoke, with the
name of her clas