"Oh!" exclaimed Betty, "it must have been in just such a spot as this in the forest that Gurth in 'Ivanhoe' suddenly came upon a company of Robin Hood's men. Gurth was the Saxon, you know. He had been to Isaac, the Jew, at York, and was carrying back the ransom money to his master, Ivanhoe. Of course, poor Gurth thought he would surely be robbed, when he discovered in whose society he was; but as you said, Mrs. Pitt, Robin Hood never took money from honest men, especially when it was not their own. They led Gurth farther and farther into the depths of Sherwood. I can just imagine it was a place like this,--where the moonlight lit up these ghostly trees, and the red glow of the camp-fire showed Gurth's frightened face. He was quite safe, though, for he proved that the money was his master's, and Robin let him go, and even showed him the way to the 'skirts of the forest,' as he did the Sheriff of Nottingham." All this time the carriage had been rolling along, and as they neared an open space in the forest, John suddenly caught sight of something which made him turn to his friend, the driver, and exclaim: "Oh, what are they?" Stretching away for quite a distance on either side of the road were rows and rows of tiny, peaked houses or coops. The coachman told them that here was where they breed the pheasants which are hunted. When the birds have reached a certain age, they are set free, and a gun is fired in their midst to give them a taint of the wild. John was much interested, in spite of the fact that he considered it "a mean trick." It really does not seem quite fair to take excellent, kindly care of any animal or bird, allow it to believe you are its friend, and then to suddenly turn it loose and proceed to hunt it for mere sport. In strange contrast to the merry drive through Sherwood Forest, was a little incident which occurred in a village on the edge of "The Dukeries" district, where they halted to water the horses. On one side of the quaint main street is a row of old, old houses, where for many years have lived the aged people who are usually provided for by the nobleman to whom that village belongs. All the tiny houses were empty at the time of this visit, with the exception of one where lived a dear old lady, by herself, her neighbors having all died. Mrs. Pitt went in to call upon her, as do most strangers passing through here, and was touched by her pathetic speech. She said they were simply waiting to tear down the houses until she should go, and looking tearfully up into Mrs. Pitt's face, added: "I'm eighty-six years old now, and I won't last much longer, but I can't go until the Lord calls me, can I?" In spite of this, she insisted that she was quite happy, for she had her "good feather bed,"--and what more could she need?