f the oaks and beeches tall ferns grew so thick that they
formed a forest of their own--a lower, lighter, lacy forest where
foxglove spires pierced here and there, and rabbits burrowed and sniffed
and nibbled, and pheasants hid nests and sometimes sprang up rocketting
startlingly. Birds were thick in the wood and trilled love songs, or
twittered and sang low in the hour before their bedtime, filling the
twilight with clear adorable sounds. The fairy-tale cottage was
whitewashed and its broad eaved roof was thatched. Hollyhocks stood in
haughty splendour against its walls and on either side its path. The
latticed windows were diamond-paned and their inside ledges filled with
flourishing fuchsias and trailing white campanula, and mignonette. The
same flowers grew thick in the crowded blooming garden. And there were
nests in the hawthorn hedge. And there was a small wicket gate.

When Robin caught sight of it she wondered--for a moment--if she were
going to cry. Only because it was part of the dream and could be nothing
else--unless one wakened.

On the tiny porch covered with honeysuckle in bloom, a little, old fairy
woman was sitting knitting a khaki sock very fast. She wore a clean
print gown and a white apron and a white cap with a frilled border. She
had a stick and a nutcracker face and a pair of large iron bowed
spectacles. She was so busy that she did not seem to hear Robin as she
walked up the path between the borders of pinks and snapdragons, but
when she was quite close to her she glanced up.

Robin thought she looked almost frightened when she saw her. She got up
and made an apologetic curtsey.

"Eh!" she ejaculated, "to think of me not hearing you. I do beg your
pardon, Miss, I do that. I was really waiting here to be ready for you."

"Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Bennett," Robin answered in a sweet hurry to
reassure her. "I hope you are very well." And she held out her hand.

Mrs. Bennett had only been shocked at her own apparent inattention to
duty. She was not really frightened and her nutcracker face illuminated
itself with delighted smiles.

"I don't hear very well at the best of times," she said. "And I've got a
bit of a cold. Just worry, Miss, just worry it is--along of this 'ere
war and my grandsons going marching off every few days seems like. Dick,
that's the youngest as was always my pet, he's the last and he'll be off
any minute--and these is his socks."

Robin actually picked up a sock and p