astening some of the harebells in
her dress (they matched her blue sash and hat ribbons). "It looks
fearfully rotten. There! I told you it wouldn't hold," as Isobel
descended with a crash. "And you're covered with sand and prickly
burrs--such a mess!"

"Never mind," said Isobel, the state of whose clothing rarely distressed
her. "They'll brush off. But I must have the briony. I'll climb up by
the wall if you'll hold these hips for a moment."

"Oh, do come along--that's a darling!" entreated Belle. "I don't want to
wait. They're only wild things, after all. I wish you could see our
garden at home, full of lovely geraniums and fuchsias and lobelias, and
the orchids and gloxinias in the conservatory. They're really worth
looking at. Carter, our gardener, takes tremendous pains with them, and
he gets heaps of prizes at shows."

"But I like wild flowers best," said Isobel. "You can find them yourself
in the hedges, and there are so many kinds. It's most exciting to hunt
out their names in the botany book."

"Do you care for botany?" said Belle. "I have it with Miss Fairfax, and
I think it's hateful--all about corollas, and stigmas, and panicles, and
umbels, and stupid long words I can't either remember or understand."

"I haven't learnt any proper botany yet," said Isobel, "only just some
of the easy part; but when we come into the country mother and I always
hunt for wild flowers, and then we press them and paste them into a
book, and write the names underneath. We have eighty-seven different
sorts at home, and I've found sixteen new ones since I came here, so I
think that's rather good, considering we've only been at Silversands a
week. How hot it is in this lane! Suppose we go round by the station and
up the cliffs."

The little lane with its high banks was certainly the most baking spot
they could have chosen for a walk on a blazing August afternoon. The sun
poured down with a steady glare, till the air seemed to quiver with the
heat, and the only things which really enjoyed themselves were the
grasshoppers, whose cheery chirpings kept up a perpetual concert. In the
fields on either side the reapers had been busy, and tired-looking
harvesters were hard at work binding the yellow corn and the scarlet
poppies into sheaves. Little groups of mothers and children and babies
had come to help or look on, as the case might be, and brought with them
cans of tea and checked handkerchiefs full of bread and butter.

"Don't t