a lichen-covered beech.

Miss Lever was as enthusiastic as the girls; she climbed over fallen
tree trunks, grubbed among dead leaves, jumped the brook and scaled
fences with delightful energy. It was she who pointed out the heron
sailing overhead, and noticed the gold-crested wren's nest hanging under
the branch of a fir, a little battered with autumn rain, and too high,
alas! to be taken, but a most interesting item to go down in the
note-books. The girls could hardly be persuaded to tear themselves away
from the glory of the woods, and would have spent the whole time there,
but Miss Lever had other plans.

"Come along! We've scared the pheasants quite enough," she declared. "My
mind is set on fossils, and if we don't go on to Copplestones at once we
shall be caught in the dark, or miss our tea or our train or something
equally disagreeable."

The quarry was only half a mile away, and it proved as interesting as
the wood. Being Saturday afternoon the men were not working, so they had
the place to themselves, and wandered about examining heaps of shale,
and tapping likely-looking stones with their hammers. Garnet and Winona
knew nothing of geology, so they listened with due meekness while the
instructed few discoursed learnedly on palæozoic rocks, stratified
conglomerates and quartzites. They rejoiced with Miss Lever, however,
when she secured a fairly intact belemnite. It was the only good find
they had, though some of the girls got broken bits of fossil shells.

"The fact is one needs a whole day to hunt about in this quarry, and my
watch tells me we ought to be going," said Miss Lever. "Who feels
inclined for tea?"