overhead. At the side of the cottage, between the yard and the kitchen garden, purled a shallow little brook, at the edge of which grew watercresses and marsh marigolds. It was spanned by a bridge made of rough slabs of stone. Beyond the stables lay a couple of small meadows, containing an upper reach of the stream, and a little marshy tract interspersed with gorse and alder bushes.

The Watson family had reviewed the whole premises slowly, critically, and with unbounded satisfaction.

"It's the sort of place you read about in a novel," sighed Daphne, whose tastes were romantic. "Somehow you feel as if anything could happen here—interesting things, I mean. Mysteries and tragedies, and—and even——"

"Love affairs!" finished Avelyn promptly. "Perhaps they may—sometime."

Avelyn was at the stage when life is full of dreams. It was her constant amusement to imagine all kinds of delightful but wildly improbable future happenings for Daphne, for herself, and for the boys. The number of castles in the air which she constructed would have built a city. They were all shadowy and unsubstantial, but none the less fascinating for that. Walden appeared to her, as to Daphne, an appropriate setting for golden visions.

David and Anthony, still in the age of blunt uncompromising frankness, regarded the new home from a practical standpoint.

"It's top-hole!" decided David. "I'll have a thingumjig—what d'you call it?—lathe, I mean, inside that cottage, and a joiner's bench. There's a man in the village who says he's got one to sell cheap, and a vice with it. I'm going to make a rabbit hutch, and all sorts of things."

"There are trout in that part of the stream up the field," beamed Anthony. "Not very big ones, but certainly trout. I saw them jump. The boy who brought the telegram yesterday told me that he catches them with his hands. He knows of sixteen birds' nests on the road to the station, and he's got a young hedgehog at home. I'm going to just sit and sit in the field when it's getting dark till I see one for myself."

"I shall grow ten years younger when I've had a summer here," announced Mrs. Watson to her flock. "You won't know your poor old mother very soon. The country air's making her so frisky and juvenile, she wants to run about like a girl!"

"Do, Muvvie darling! We love you in your skittish moods," implored Avelyn. "When you wear that short skirt and that rush hat you don't look a day older than Auntie Belle—truly! You never climbed up step ladders in Gerrard Square!"

"I've begun to do many things I never did before," laughed Mrs. Watson, "partly from necessity. If I could have found anybody else to go up the step ladder, perhaps I shouldn't have tried. We've all got to work if we want to make the place look nice. It'll be worth it when we've finished."

Walden had been empty for two years before its owner sold it, and, though it was in a fair state of repair as regarded masonry and woodwork, it sadly needed decorating. The question of its repapering and painting had been the one hitch in the proceedings, for, when Mrs. Watson had sought to obtain estimates for its renovation, she found that, in the present war-time shortage of workmen, no firm would undertake to carry out a job so far in the country. For three horrible days matters had seemed at a dead-lock, and the purchase of Walden (not quite concluded) had trembled in the balance. But Daphne's white cheeks brought all Mrs. Watson's native obstinacy to the fore. She was determined not to be vanquished. She enquired in the village, and secured the services of an old soldier who used to be handy-man at the Vicarage, and with his experienced aid and the willing, though unskilled hands of her young flock, she determined to do up Walden herself. She secured lodgings for a few weeks at a farm close by, and the family devoted the Easter holidays to the purpose. It was a new experience for them, and they enjoyed it thoroughly. Armed with pails of distemper and whitewash brushes, they splashed away at the walls, painted woodwork, stained floors, or laid linoleum. They made a delightful discovery in the dining-room, for, when they came to tear down the old wall paper, they found an overmantel of ancient oak beams. The fireplace was large and old-fashioned, with ingle nooks on either side, the woodwork had been completely covered with paper and plaster, but when this was cleared away, and it was cleaned, stained, and varnished, it presented a most quaint and handsome appearance. The great beam that spanned the hearth had a flat surface, and on this Mrs. Watson decided to carve a motto. The family put their heads together over it for many days. They looked up mottoes in books, and consulted their friends, but could not find exactly the right one. Daphne and Avelyn were in favour of English, but Mrs. Watson and the boys plumped for Latin, and finally evolved the following:—

Post laborem haec requies haec felicitas.
(After work, here is rest and happiness.)

"When you've finished your lessons in the evenings, we can make a circle round the fire and talk about the day's doings; and it will seem a centre for the whole house and for our lives," said Mrs. Watson. "I believe this little home is going to be far more precious to us than Gerrard Square."

To the children the doing up of the establishment was the utmost fun. Thoreau himself could not have obtained more enjoyment from his "Walden" than they did from theirs. There were many humorous incidents; as when Anthony sat down in the colour wash pail, or when Daphne dropped a pot of pink paint on the top of David's head, or when Avelyn poured in paraffin by mistake, instead of methylated spirit, to thin the varnish. It was a proud day when at last colour wash and paint were dry, and the floor was swept and cleaned, and the vans arrived and the furniture was carried in. Mrs. Watson had sold most of the heavy possessions which they owned in Gerrard Square, and had bought in their place tasteful antiques which suited the house far better, and gave it an air of quaint culture and comfort. When all was arranged it looked a charming little abode, and thoroughly in harmony, from the black beams of its ingle nook to the carved settle and gate-legged oak table, or the framed samplers on its walls.

Many surprising incidents happened in the first days of occupation. Very early one morning, as Daphne and Avelyn lay in bed, they were awakened by a tweeting and whirr of wings, and found that a pair of newly-arrived swallows had flown in through the open window, and were whirling overhead, evidently with designs on the big cross beam for nesting purposes. The sight of the girls, who sat up in bed, seemed to annoy them, for they twittered with anger, scintillated rapidly round the room, then flashed out through the window into the spring sunshine.

"Well," exclaimed Daphne, "this certainly is living in the country! Actually swallows in our bedroom!"

"The poor darlings!" declared Avelyn. "They've had a horrible disappointment. They'd made up their minds to have their nest on that beam. I remember Martin Jones pulled down a swallow's nest before he whitewashed, and said they had built there last year, and had got in because the window was broken. They must think we're dreadful intruders. They were scolding us as hard as they could in bird language."

"Shall we hang out a notice: 'To Let, Eligible Quarters for Swallows'?" laughed Daphne. "We might even put nesting boxes round the walls, and extend the invitation to other birds."

To anyone who wished to study natural history, Walden certainly offered advantages. There was a friendly robin