help the stranger; but the latter, with a frank smile and a nod,
drew herself up without more ado, perched on the top of the fence,
then sprang lightly to the ground.

"Thank you so much!" she said, warmly, taking Hildegarde's
outstretched hand. "Of course I didn't know I was trespassing, but
I'm glad I came. And oh, what a lovely place! I didn't know there
was such a place out of a book. Oh, the hedges! and the brook! and
the trees! How can it be real?"

Hildegarde nodded in delight. "Yes!" she said. "That is just the
way I felt when I first saw the place. It was some time before I
could feel it right to come here without apologizing to the
ghosts."

"Your ancestors' ghosts?" said Bell Merryweather, inquiringly.
"Aren't they your own ghosts? Haven't you lived here always?"

Hildegarde explained that the place had belonged to a cousin of
her mother's, who left it to her at his death.

"Oh!" said Miss Merryweather; then she considered a little, with
her head on one side. Hildegarde decided that, though not a
beauty, the new-comer had one of the pleasantest faces she had
ever seen.

"On the whole," the girl went on, "I am rather glad that my theory
was wrong. The truth is less romantic, but it makes you much more
real and accessible, which is, after all, desirable in a country
neighbourhood."