Under foot the way was smooth enough, well beaten, and, to-day, frost-bound; so that no distraction offered itself to divert the mind from close attention to these dangers overhead. It was a lovely scene. Dew and frost had combined to set a sparkling filigree upon patches of bracken, whilst in the less-sheltered spots whole groups of trees stood as if carved in white glistening coral, the knots and articulations of each massive trunk, shapely branch, and twig clearly defined against a sky of such steely blue, that the scarlet of the holly berries was rendered doubly vivid in compliment, and the shining dark blue-green of the holly leaves looked almost cruel in the strength and sharpness of their stiff outline—the hard, even curves between the tiny spikes seeming only to serve to strengthen the merciless little weapons, as though Nature, in her vein of architect, was aware of the support lying within the arch-like fashion of shape, and revelled in the knowledge. Upon the ground dead leaf-drifts in masses shimmered white and hard-caked together; hollow hazel-nuts and dry alder cones lay stiff and stark; touchwood abounded—all wreckage of the passing year, most beautiful in death, keeping life in whatsoever it covered, giving warmth and protection to delicate root and bulb, to grey lichen and green mosses; whilst the dead brake fern helped to nurse next year’s glory of bracken—all jealously guarding the priceless treasures locked within the earth, showing that death is not vain. Rest in life was upon all things; beautiful in itself and in the promise it gave forth. For oh, the transcendent loveliness of a few months later, when Nature should arise from her long, long beauty-sleep, warm-flushed, star-eyed, instinct with tender vigour, to bathe in dew and sun baths! Hazel gazed upon the undergrowth with reflecting knowledge. It was one of her delights to separate with the eye, briar and bramble, whortleberry and woodrush, from out the delicious tangle it exhibited, to paint and fashion it all in spring colours and shapes of scarlet bells and purple berries. Now and again Paul looked round at the girl, smiling to himself at her abstracted face and mien. Twice he called to her to beware of a treacherous branch, and Hazel obediently ducked. He was about to do so on a third occasion, when that befell which, terrible as it appeared to Hazel, left Paul thankful in that the seeming mischance wrought him nothing but good, and bid him enter into his man’s heritage: a woman’s love—to taste of its fulness. For, in an unguarded moment, when stress of emotion had unlocked the close-fastened child-heart, there was no time to secure it again before Paul had entered and taken full possession.