March had come, and even in the northern mountainous region of the Pennines, where snow lingers long after it has melted in more favoured districts, winter had begun to make way for spring. The snowdrops--January flowers in Wales or Cornwall, fair maids of February in most counties--were late bloomers at Pendlemere, and were never in their prime till St. Patrick's Day. They made up for their tardy arrival by their luxuriance. They grew almost wild in the orchard, and spread like a white carpet over the grass, tossing fairy bells in the wind. Diana, promoted to help Miss Carr in the spraying of apple-trees, paused in her work to look round and revel in nature's re-awakening. She was a sun lover, and the long months of perpetual mist and rain had tried her very much. She had, to be sure, kept up her spirits in spite of weather; still, the sight of fleecy, white clouds scudding across a blue sky, and the sound of the missel-thrush tuning up on the bare branch of the plum-tree were particularly cheering. Hedge-sparrows twittered among the shrubs, and rooks were busy flying with large twigs in their bills to repair their nests in the elms near the church. In the March sunshine the lake glittered like gold. "I wonder if it looked just like this when the old monks lived here," said Diana. "Did they see exactly what we do now?" "Pretty much the same, I expect," answered Miss Carr rather abstractedly. "The lake and the fells would be there, and probably most of the farms, though the buildings would be different in those days. The lay brethren would attend to the land just as we do. I dare say they dug in this very orchard, and grew herbs in the same place where we're going to plant our potatoes." "It's a pity we can't call up a vision of them!" "No, thank you!" said Miss Carr, who was a practical person, and not given to romance. "I've not the slightest desire to see spooks. I'm quite content with modern life, and don't want fourteenth-century ghosts gliding about the place. Get on with your work, Diana! I'm more concerned with apple-trees than with the old monks." When Diana got an idea into her head, however, it was apt to stick. She had a lively imagination, and she liked to picture what the Abbey had once been. She read the account of it in the local guidebook and in Chadwick's _Northern Antiquities_, which she borrowed from the library, and she further devoured Scott's _The Monastery_. Steeped in this mediaeval atmosphere, she began to tell the girls such vivid stories of the doings of the brethren that they almost believed her. She invented several fictitious characters: Brother Amos, Brother Lawrence, Brother John, and Prior Andrew, and gave a most circumstantial account of their adventures. "How do you know what they used to do?" asked Jess, much impressed. "I guess I sort of feel it," said Diana. "It's almost like remembering." "Some people think we come back to earth and live again. Were you one of the old monks, Di?"