the brown thatch, telling of the inmates' loving fingers, were all swept
away now, and in the place that once knew them, stretched trim drills of
turnips, fenced by grim stone walls, to which time had not yet given a
moss-covered beauty.

Mr. Graham had thought it wise for his client's interests to remove
those little "crofts," and merge their kailyards into productive fields;
so the dwellers in the greensward cottages had to wander townwards to
seek shelter and work in city courts and alleys. The land was now
divided into a few farms, on which stood imposing-looking houses, with
knockers and latch-keys to the doors, where the little girl and the
white pony would never have ventured to ask admittance, or cared to gain
it--where "nobody wanted nothin' from nobody," old Adam, the gardener,
had assured Margery, when she made anxious inquiries concerning the
prospect of Grace's search, and who hoped that this circumstantial
information might persuade her young mistress to abandon it.

The prophecy that it was "a fule's errand" rang unpleasantly in Grace's
ear, as she crossed the park and climbed the rustic stiles which led to
the high road. It was true she knew that during the last three years
there had been many a "clearance" at Kirklands, for she remembered
having overheard Mr. Graham congratulating her aunt on the larger
returns owing to these improvements. But surely, she thought, there
might still be found some little cottages like those to which she heard
her mamma was so fond of going when she was a girl. Walter and she used
certainly, she remembered, often to see children with bare, dust-stained
feet on the road, when they happened to go beyond the grounds on a
fishing expedition, or down with their aunt through her lands; but her
brother had been an all-sufficient playmate, and Grace's interest in the
peasant children did not extend beyond a glance of curiosity. But now