the climb.

"Please!--please!"--the little lady panted, as they reached the
top--"wasn't this worth it?"

For they stood in one of the famous wood and common lands of Southern
England--great beeches towering overhead--glades opening to right and
left--ferny paths over green turf-tracks, and avenues of immemorial age,
the highways of a vanished life--old earth-works, overgrown--lanes
deep-sunk in the chalk where the pack-horses once made their
way--gnarled thorns, bent with years, yet still white-mantled in the
spring: a wild, enchanted no-man's country, owned it seemed by rabbits
and birds, solitary, lovely, and barren--yet from its furthest edge, the
high spectator, looking eastward, on a clear night, might see on the
horizon the dim flare of London.

Diana's habitual joy broke out, as she stood gazing at the village
below, the walls and woods of Beechcote, the church, the plough-lands,
and the far-western plain, drawn in pale grays and purples under the
declining sun.

"Isn't it heavenly!--the browns--the blues--the soberness, the delicacy
of it all? Oh, so much better than any tiresome Mediterranean--any
stupid Riviera!--Ah!" She stopped and turned, checked by a sound
behind her.

Captain Roughsedge appeared, carrying his gun, his spaniel beside him.
He greeted the ladies with what seemed to Mrs. Colwood a very evident
start of pleasure, and turned to walk with them.