Anstice was slowly but surely winning the children's love, and her displeasure was already more to be feared in their eyes than any punishment. CHAPTER VIII A LONELY GIRL ONE day Anstice took one of her long rambles over the Fells. Rain had kept her in the house for over a week. She felt that mentally and physically she needed a change of environment. Holidays were coming soon, and then she knew that she would be much less free to absent herself for hours from her household. The clear air and fresh mountain breezes braced and refreshed her. Hercules accompanied her, and with him as companion, she never felt lonely. She wanted to reach a certain remote lake which she had been told was very picturesque, so she started early in the morning and took a packet of sandwiches with her. She had to get across to the other side of the lake before she started up the Fells. Stephen rowed her across in the boat, and promised to come over again to row her back about three o'clock in the afternoon. It was a grey day, but the glass was high, and Anstice preferred a cool day to a sunny one. Now as she trod the soft, springy turf and mounted higher and higher, she felt as if all her difficulties and household cares had flown away. Curlews wheeled about above her head, but save for the bleating of the sheep across the Fells, no other sounds disturbed her. She crossed a high ridge, then descended into a valley. Her path wound in and out at the bottom, under the shadow of high crags above her, and as she went on and on, it seemed to get wilder and more desolate. Once or twice, pedestrians crossed her path. Two youths with knapsacks on their backs directed her towards the lake of which she was in quest. The Fells on each side of her seemed to be gradually narrowing the valley, and then a sudden turn brought her in sight of her goal. There the water lay, surrounded by green walls of wooded heights; behind were the purple mountains. A small white farm-house on one side and two cottages on the other were all the signs of human habitation. Then as she went on down a green lane arched over by hanging trees, she came upon a tiny grey rough-stoned house, and about ten minutes farther on, a minute stone church, nestling amid splendid old yews. She had heard of the quaint mediæval church, so went inside. The plain dark oak roof and walls, and the massive oak beams supporting the roof—trunks of large trees rough-hewn into shape, and the cushioned seats circling round the altar rails, all delighted her artist's soul. She wondered how many of the scattered homesteads on the Fells and in the valley congregated within it on Sundays.