d Perkins. "What's the killing?"

Mandy made no reply save by a disdainful flirt of her skirts as she set
off down the lane, followed by Perkins, Cameron and Tim bringing up the
rear.

The lane was a grassy sward, cut with two wagon-wheel tracks, and with
a picturesque snake fence on either side. Beyond the fences lay the
fields, some of them with stubble raked clean, the next year's clover
showing green above the yellow, some with the grain standing still in
the shock, and some with the crop, the late oats for instance, still
uncut, but ready for the reaper. The turnip field was splendidly and
luxuriantly green with never a sign of the brown earth. The hay meadow,
too, was green and purple with the second growth of clover.

So down the lane and between the shorn fields, yellow and green, between
the clover fields and the turnips, they walked in silence, for the
spell of the Sabbath evening lay upon the sunny fields, barred with the
shadows from the trees that grew along the fence lines everywhere.
At the "slashing" the wagon ruts faded out and the road narrowed to a
single cow path, winding its way between stumps and round log piles,
half hidden by a luxuriant growth of foxglove and fireweed and asters,
and everywhere the glorious goldenrod. Then through the bars the path
led into the woods, a noble remnant of the beech and elm and maple
forest from which the farm had been cut some sixty years before. Cool
and shadowy they stood, and shot through with bright shafts of gold from
the westering sun, full of mysterious silence except for the twittering
of the sleepy birds or for the remonstrant call of the sentinel crow
from his watch tower on the dead top of a great elm. Deeper into the
shade the path ran until in the gloom it faded almost out of sight.

Soothed by the cool shade, Cameron loitered along the path, pausing to
learn of Tim the names of plants and trees as he went.

"Ain't yeh never comin'?" called Mandy from the gloom far in front.

"What's all the rush?" replied Tim, impatiently, who loved nothing
better than a quiet walk with Cameron through the woods.

"Rush? We'll be late, and I hate walkin' up before the hull crowd. Come
on!" cried his sister in impatient tone.

"All right, Mandy, we're nearly through the woods. I begin to see
the clearing yonder," said Cameron, pointing to where the light was
beginning to show through the tree tops before them.

But they were late enough, and Mandy was glad of