"They were going to take me there," said Miss March. "It was at a village near Bath where Mr. and Mrs. Bellairs were then living, and one day, after a party of gipsies had been encamping on the common, a cottager's wife heard something crying in the night, and found me in her little garden. She was too poor to keep me herself, and felt certain I was a child the gipsies had stolen and then wanted to get rid of. I was fair-haired and blue-eyed, not like them. She was a friend or relation of some of Mrs. Bellairs's servants, and so the story got round to my kind old friend. And you know the rest--how they first thought of bringing me up in quite a humble way, and then finding me--well, intelligent and naturally rather refined, I suppose, I got a really good education, and my good luck did not desert me, dear, when I came to be your governess." Sybil smiled. "And can you remember _nothing_?" Ellinor hesitated. "Queer, dreamy fragments come back to me sometimes," she said. "I have a feeling of having seen hills long, long ago. It is strange," she went on, for by this time they had left the private grounds and were strolling along the hill-path in the direction of the town, "it is strange that since I came here I seem to have got hold of a tiny bit of these old memories, if they are such. It must be the hills," and she stood still and gazed round her with a deep breath of satisfaction, "I could only have been between two and three when I was found," she went on. "The only words I said were 'Dada' and 'Nennie'--it sounded like 'Nelly'. That was why Mrs. Bellairs called me 'Ellinor,' and 'March,' because it was in that month she took me to her house." Sybil walked on in silence for a moment or two. "It _is_ such a romantic story," she said at last. "I am never tired of thinking about it." They entered Monksholdings again from the east entrance, Ellinor glanced at the stile. "By-the-bye," she said, "this is one of the two old stiles, I suppose. Have you ever seen your ghost again, Sybil? Have you found out anything about him?" Sybil looked round her half nervously. "It is the other stile he haunts," she said. "I rather avoid it, at least, I mean to do so now. It is curious you speak of it, for till yesterday I had not seen him again, and had almost forgotten about it. But yesterday afternoon, just before you came, there he was--exactly the same, staring in. I meant to speak to papa about it, but with the pleasure and bustle of your arrival, I forgot it. Remind me about it. I am afraid he is out of his mind." "Poor old man!" said Ellinor. "I wish we could do something to comfort him. I feel as if everybody _must_ be happy here. It is such a charming, exhilarating place. Dear me, how windy it is! The path is all strewn with the white petals of the cherry blossom." "They have degenerated into wild cherry trees," said Sybil. "Long ago papa says these must have been good fruit trees of many kinds, and this is a great cherry country, you know."