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HE heart of an English valley; a stretch of green slope, where oaks and elms had grown through slow centuries into grandeur; and through the fields, like an arrow of silver, the clear waters of the Lean.

Down by its banks a young girl, wandering alone; singing as she went, her white gown shining in the sunlight.

What was her song, I know not. Possibly it was the effort of a very young and sympathetic nature, seeking some faint expression for a sense of joy and beauty instinctively felt.

She thought she was alone; but presently above the high reeds she saw the head and shoulders of a solitary angler. Then she stopped singing and went on cautiously.

This young lady's chaperon was sitting up among the elms sketching. She had warned her charge not to wander too far away, and of the possibility of encountering strangers; some of the "all sorts of people"—tourists and wanderers—who were said in summer to delight in fishing the waters of the Lean.

There was that, however, in the shape of the head and shoulders, seen outlined against the sky, which attracted Miss Rawdon, and she did not turn back as she might have done.

She was very young, and the world promised to be a fairy tale, with always an impending transformation scene of entrancing possibilities. Only three weeks ago she had left school; the school-house at Norwood and the care of the two kindly Misses Lake, its mistresses, bounded all the horizon of her childish recollection. Now she was longing to come into touch with this world of wonders, the smallest incident of which promised an adventure.

When she reached a willow, half a field's length from the angler, she stopped. The trunk partly concealed her, and she could watch proceedings comfortably.

Nothing might have come of it. She might have returned to Mrs. Montresor sitting under the elms with no distinct increase of impression, beyond the outline of a hat and a pair of shoulders; but swish through the long grass came something straight in her direction.

It was an Irish terrier, as keenly excursive as herself. He had caught sight of the white gleam behind the willow trunk, and, forgetful of his master and his master's interests, of all a dog's duty, he started to investigate its meaning.

"Back, Rollo—back, you beast!"