And beyond the fields a wood--such a wood as made Laura's south-country eyes stand wide with wonder! Out she jumped, tied the pony's rein to a gate beside the road, and ran into the hazel brushwood with little cries of pleasure. A Westmoreland wood in daffodil time--it was nothing more and nothing less. But to this child with the young passion in her blood, it was a dream, an ecstasy. The golden flowers, the slim stalks, rose from a mist of greenish-blue, made by their speary leaf amid the encircling browns and purples, the intricate stem and branch-work of the still winter-bound hazels. Never were daffodils in such a wealth before! They were flung on the fell-side through a score of acres, in sheets and tapestries of gold,--such an audacious, unreckoned plenty as went strangely with the frugal air and temper of the northern country, with the bare walled fields, the ruggedness of the crags above, and the melancholy of the treeless marsh below. And within this common lavishness, all possible delicacy, all possible perfection of the separate bloom and tuft--each foot of ground had its own glory. For below the daffodils there was a carpet of dark violets, so dim and close that it was their scent first bewrayed them; and as Laura lay gathering with her face among the flowers, she could see behind their gold, and between the hazel stems, the light-filled greys and azures of the mountain distance. Each detail in the happy whole struck on the girl's eager sense and made there a poem of northern spring--spring as the fell-country sees it, pure, cold, expectant, with flashes of a blossoming beauty amid the rocks and pastures, unmatched for daintiness and joy. Presently Laura found herself sitting--half crying!--on a mossy tuft, looking along the wood to the distance. What was it in this exquisite country that seized upon her so--that spoke to her in this intimate, this appealing voice? Why, she was of it--she belonged to it--she felt it in her veins! Old inherited things leapt within her--or it pleased her to think so. It was as though she stretched out her arms to the mountains and fields, crying to them, "I am not a stranger--draw me to you--my life sprang from yours!" A host of burning and tender thoughts ran through her. Their first effect was to remind her of the farm and of her cousins; and she sprang up, and went back to the cart.