"Concerned about Loupe, eh!"

"I am not thinking about Loupe. O Ransom! stop him; there's Nora
Dinwiddie; I want to get out."

[Illustration: THE CHURCH BY THE WINTERGREENS.]

The place at which they were arrived had a little less the air of
carefully kept grounds, and more the look of a sweet wild wood; for the
trees clustered thicker in patches, and grey rock, in large and in small
quantities, was plenty about among the trees. Yet still here was care;
no unsightly underbrush or rubbish of dead branches was anywhere to be
seen; and the greensward, where it spread, was shaven and soft as ever.
It spread on three sides around a little church, which, in green and
gray, seemed almost a part of its surroundings. A little church, with a
little quaint bell-tower and arched doorway, built after some old, old
model; it stood as quietly in the green solitude of trees and rocks, as
if it and they had grown up together. It was almost so. The walls were
of native greystone in its natural roughness; all over the front and
one angle the American ivy climbed and waved, mounting to the tower;
while at the back, the closer clinging Irish ivy covered the little
"apse," and creeping round the corner, was advancing to the windows, and
promising to case the first one in a loving frame of its own. It seemed
that no carriage-road came to this place, other than the dressed
gravelled path which the pony-chaise had travelled, and which made a
circuit on approaching the rear of the church. The worshippers must come
humbly on foot; and a wicket in front of the church led out upon a path
suited for such. Perhaps a public road might be not far off, but at
least here there was no promise of it. In the edge of the thicket, at
the side of the church, was the girl whose appearance Daisy had hailed.