For overhead the trees seemed sighing as though they held secrets that they never meant to tell except in a language of their own which no one but themselves could ever understand. Underfoot the dry leaves crackled, and occasionally a bird, taking the rustling path itself, caused Betty to look round hopefully. “I never knew before that birds’ steps could sound so loud in a wood,” thought she. “That’s three times I’ve turned round, and it’s always been a thrush pecking under the leaves. Well, that’s something about birds, I suppose, that I’ve learned at first-hand, like Eve told us to try to do in Guide lesson. I shall tell her next time.” But Betty was beginning to feel rather disappointed, for she had found out absolutely nothing to help her in her quest. “I’ve been too ‘helter-skelter,’ that’s what Sybil would say,” she remarked to herself. “Well, I’d better go back and try again to-morrow.” But going back was not quite so simple a course as she had expected. She had forgotten to notice any distinguishing features on any of the trees, and now they all seemed alike. “Here’s a hurdle sort of thing. Did I pass it before?” she asked herself. “And that tree; it looks familiar somehow. If I only knew which way St. Benedick’s lies! The rest of the Guides have compasses, and Gerry said they made it much easier to find one’s way. I shall ask her to-morrow. But now I don’t know exactly where I am.” She turned and walked on. “I rather think, if I pass these trees, that I see that clearing-place beginning again just beyond.” She was not in the least nervous, for, after all, the school must be very near. The adventure was “thrilly,” she decided. It was not until the next trees had been passed, and the “clearing-place” reached, that Betty suddenly stood still and stared. “Why!” she said. For this was not the bare patch between the trees which she had passed before--just beyond the beeches which separated it from St. Benedick’s. This was a clearing, certainly, but quite a different one. The ground was studded with clumps of bracken and with tussocks of blue-bells; but there was something else in the clearing too. A cottage! A little tumble-down desolate cottage! And at the sight of it Betty stood perfectly still, staring with eyes filled with wonder. “I’ve come wrong! It’s the witch’s cottage,” she said. “Oh, you _poor_ thing!” For if ever a tiny forsaken dwelling was in need of Betty’s motherly ministrations, this cottage certainly seemed that one. The fact that it was presumably “haunted,” and shunned by the villagers in consequence; the fact that a witch might still have her abode there; even the fact that she herself must certainly be considered by the law in the light of a trespasser, were forgotten as she gazed.