"Oh, my bastwick," she exclaimed. "I was nearly forgetting my bastwick," and up-stairs again she climbed to the cupboard, in one dark corner of which she had hidden it. Luckily it was still there; no one had touched it; so feeling herself quite equipped for the journey, Hoodie walked out of the front door, crossed the gravel drive, and made her way down a little path with a rustic gate at the end leading straight out on to the high road. When she got there she stood still and looked about her. Which way should she go? It had turned out a beautiful afternoon, though the morning had been so stormy. The road was nearly dry already, the sky overhead was blue, save here and there where little feathery clouds were flying about in some agitation; it might rain again before night, for though not exactly cold, there was no summer glow as yet, and the sunshine, though bright, had a very April feeling about it. Hoodie stood still and looked about her, up and down the road. It was a pretty, peaceful scene--the broad well-kept highway, bordered at one side with beautiful old trees just bursting into bloom, and across, on the other side of the low hedge, the fresh green fields, all the fresher for the morning's rain, in some of which already the tender little lambkins were sporting about or cuddling in by the side of their warm woolly ewe-mothers. "I wish I was a lamb," thought Hoodie, as her glance fell on them. Then as she looked away beyond the fields to where in the distance the land sloped upwards into softly rising hills, a flight of birds attracted her attention. How prettily they flew, waving, now upwards, now downwards, like one long ribbon against the sky. "Or a little bird," she added. "If I was up there I could see so nicely where to go, and I could fly, fly, till I got to the sun." But just then the sound of wheels coming near brought her thoughts down to earth again. Which way should she go? She _must_ pass through a wood. That was the only thing that at present she felt sure of, and there was a wood she remembered some way down the road, past Mr. Bright's farm. So down the road Hoodie trotted, her basket firmly clasped in her hand, her little figure the only moving thing to be seen along the queen's highway. For the cart to which the wheels belonged had passed quickly--it was only the grocer from the neighbouring town, so on marched Hoodie undisturbed. A little on this side of farmer Bright's a lane turned off to the left. This lane, Hoodie decided, must be the way to the wood, so she left the road and went along the lane for about a quarter of a mile, till, to her perplexity, it ended in a sort of little croft with a stile at each side. Hoodie climbed up both stiles in turns and looked about her. The wood was not to be seen from either, but across a field from the second stile she saw the tops of some trees standing on lower ground.