“Shall I go and get you some blackberries, darling?” Sylvie whispered, with her arms round his neck; and she kissed away a tear that was trickling down his cheek. Bruno brightened up in a moment. “That _are_ a good plan!” he exclaimed. “I thinks my foot would come _quite_ unhurted, if I eated a blackberry—two or three blackberries—six or seven blackberries—” Sylvie got up hastily. “I’d better go,” she said, aside to me, “before he gets into the double figures!” “Let me come and help you,” I said. “I can reach higher up than you can.” “Yes, please,” said Sylvie, putting her hand into mine: and we walked off together. “Bruno _loves_ blackberries,” she said, as we paced slowly along by a tall hedge, that looked a promising place for them, “and it was so _sweet_ of him to make me eat the only one!” “Oh, it was _you_ that ate it, then? Bruno didn’t seem to like to tell me about it.” “No; I saw that,” said Sylvie. “He’s always afraid of being praised. But he _made_ me eat it, really! I would much rather he—oh, what’s that?” And she clung to my hand, half-frightened, as we came in sight of a hare, lying on its side with legs stretched out, just in the entrance to the wood. “It’s a _hare_, my child. Perhaps it’s asleep.” “No, it isn’t asleep,” Sylvie said, timidly going nearer to look at it: “it’s eyes are open. Is it—is it—” her voice dropped to an awestruck whisper, “is it _dead_, do you think?” “Yes, it’s quite dead,” I said, after stooping to examine it. “Poor thing! I think it’s been hunted to death. I know the harriers were out yesterday. But they haven’t touched it. Perhaps they caught sight of another, and left it to die of fright and exhaustion.” “Hunted to _death_?” Sylvie repeated to herself, very slowly and sadly. “I thought hunting was a thing they _played_ at—like a game. Bruno and I hunt snails: but we never hurt them when we catch them!” “Sweet angel!” I thought. “How am I to get the idea of _Sport_ into your innocent mind?” And as we stood, hand-in-hand, looking down at the dead hare, I tried to put the thing into such words as she could understand. “You know what fierce wild-beasts lions and tigers are?” Sylvie nodded. “Well, in some countries men _have_ to kill them, to save their own lives, you know.” “Yes,” said Sylvie: “if one tried to kill _me_, Bruno would kill _it_—if he could.” “Well, and so the men—the hunters—get to enjoy it, you know: the running, and the fighting, and the shouting, and the danger.” “Yes,” said Sylvie. “Bruno likes danger.” “Well, but, in _this_ country, there aren’t any lions and tigers, loose: so they hunt other creatures, you see.” I hoped, but in vain, that this would satisfy her, and that she would ask no more questions. “They hunt _foxes_,” Sylvie said, thoughtfully. “And I think they _kill_ them, too. Foxes are very fierce. I daresay men don’t love them. Are hares fierce?” “No,” I said. “A hare is a sweet, gentle, timid animal—almost as gentle as a lamb.”