On the time-worn steps of the grey mansion there stood a girl, cloaked
and bonneted for a walk, notwithstanding the uninviting weather.

"It's a fule's errand, I assure ye, Miss Grace, and on such an
afternoon, too. I've been askin' at old Adam the gardener, and he says
there isna one o' the kind left worth mindin' in all the valley o'
Kirklands. So do not go wanderin' on such an errand in this bitter wind,
missy."

The speaker was an old woman, standing in the doorway, glancing with an
expression of kindly anxiety towards the girl, who leant on one of the
carved griffins of the old stone railing.

Grace had been looking at the speaker with troubled eyes as she listened
to her remonstrance, and now she said, meditatively, "Does old Adam
really say so, Margery?" Then with a quick gesture she turned to go down
the steps, adding cheerily, "Well, there's no harm in trying, and as for
the wind, that doesn't matter a bit. It's what Walter would call a nice
breezy day. I'm really going, nursie. Shut the door, and keep your old
self warm. I shall be home again by the time aunt has finished her
afternoon's sleep." And Grace turned quickly away, not in the direction
of the sheltered elm avenue, but across the park, by the path which led
most quickly beyond the grounds. Presently she slackened her pace, and
turning for a moment she glanced rather ruefully towards the high walls
of the old garden, as if prudence dictated that she should seek fuller
information there, before she set out on this search, which she had
planned that afternoon. The old nurse's words on the subject seemed to
have sent a chilling gust to her heart, harder to bear than the bitter
spring wind. Old Adam certainly knew the countryside better than anybody
else, she pondered, and he seemed to have given it as his decision that