While her house was being built, she lodged in Ambleside; and in that time, during the autumn and winter of 1845-6, she wrote her _Forest and Game Law Tales_, with the object of showing how mischievous the game laws were in their operation upon society at large, and more particularly upon the fortunes of individual farmers, and upon the laborers who were led into poaching. These tales occupy three volumes of the ordinary novel size. They had a sale which would have been very good for a novel; two thousand copies were disposed of, and doubtless did some service for the cause for which she had worked. So far as her own pecuniary interests were concerned, however, these tales made her first failure. It was the only work which never returned her any remuneration. The publisher had reckoned on a very large circulation, and so had put out too much capital in stock, stereotypes, and the like, to leave any profit on the sale that actually took place; and the publication unfortunately coincided with the agitation of the political world about the repeal of the corn laws. But one pleasing incident arose out of them for her personally. She had been in difficulties as to how to obtain turf to lay down upon the land under her terrace. One fine morning, soon after her entrance on her home, her maid found a great heap of sods under the window, when she opened the shutters in the morning. A dirty note, closed with a wafer, was stuck upon the pile, and this was found to state that the sods were "a token of gratitude for the _Game Law Tales_, from a Poacher." Harriet never discovered from whom this tribute came. She took possession of her home on April 7th, 1846. During the summer she wrote another story for young people--one of her most interesting tales, and instructive in its moral bearing--_The Billow and the Rock_. It must here be noted, in passing, that this is the last of her works in which the theism that she had, up to this time, held for religious truth, makes itself visible. A new experience was about to lead her to think afresh upon the theological subjects, and to revise her opinions about the genesis of faiths, and their influence upon morals. In the autumn of 1846, she accepted an invitation from her friends, Mr. and Mrs. R. V. Yates, of Liverpool, to join them in a journey to the East, they bearing the expense. The party left England in October, and were met at Malta by Mr. J. C. Ewart, afterwards M.P. for Liverpool. Together, these four travellers sailed up the Nile to the second cataract, studied Thebes and Philae, went up and into the Great Pyramid, visited bazaars, mosques and (the ladies) harems, in Cairo. Then they travelled in the track of Moses in the desert, passing Sinai and reaching Petra. Next, they completely traversed Palestine; and finally, passed through Syria to Beyrout, where they took ship again for home. This journey occupied eight months.