Only the crudeness of youth was here as yet, and not its triumph--only
the sharp calyx-point, the pricking tip of the bud, like spears, and
not the paten of the leaf, the chalice of the flower.

For as yet spring had no flight, no song, but went like a half-fledged
bird, hopping tentatively through the undergrowth. The bright springing
mercury that carpeted the open spaces had only just hung out its pale
flowers, and honeysuckle leaves were still tongues of green fire.
Between the larch boles and under the thickets of honeysuckle and
blackberry came a tawny silent form, wearing with the calm dignity of
woodland creatures a beauty of eye and limb, a brilliance of tint, that
few-women could have worn without self-consciousness. Clear-eyed,
lithe, it stood for a moment in the full sunlight--a year-old fox,
round-headed and velvet-footed. Then it slid into the shadows. A shrill
whistle came from the interior of the wood, and the fox bounded towards
it.

'Where you bin? You'm stray and lose yourself, certain sure!' said a
girl's voice, chidingly motherly. 'And if you'm alost, I'm alost; so
come you whome. The sun's undering, and there's bones for supper!'

With that she took to her heels, the little fox after her, racing down
the Callow in the cold level light till they came to the Woodus's
cottage.

Hazel Woodus, to whom the fox belonged, had always lived at the Callow.
There her mother, a Welsh gipsy, had born her in bitter rebellion,
hating marriage and a settled life and Abel Woodus as a wild cat hates
a cage. She was a rover, born for the artist's joy and sorrow, and her