Miss Lever, otherwise Dollikins, from the fact that her Christian name was Dorothy, held high favor among the girls.  She was brisk and jolly, decidedly athletic, and a first-rate leader of outdoor expeditions.  She had called at the gamekeeper’s cottage en route and shown the letter of permission from the owner of the property, so that the party was able to explore the wood with a clear conscience, despite the trespass notice nailed on to the gate.  And what a delightful wood it was!  To enter it was like stepping into one of Grimm’s fairy tales.  An avenue of splendid pines reared their dark boughs against a russet background of beeches; everywhere the leaves seemed to have donned their brightest and gayest tints, as if bidding a last good-by before they fell from the trees.  The undergrowth was gorgeous:  bramble, elder, honeysuckle, briony, rowan, and alder vied with one another in the vividness of their crimson and orange, while the bracken was a sea of pale gold.  There were all sorts of delightful things to be found—­acorns lay so plentifully in the pathway that the girls could not help scrunching them underfoot.  A few were already sending out tiny shoots in anticipation of spring, and these were carefully saved to take home and grow in bottles.  A stream ran through the wood, its banks almost completely covered with vivid green mosses, in sheets so thick and compact that a slight pull would raise a yard at a time.  Some resembled tufted tassels, some the most delicate ferns, and others showed the split cups of their seed-vessels like pixie goblets.  Annie Hardy, whose experienced eyes were on the look-out for certain botanical treasures reported to grow at Monkend, was searching among the dead twigs under the hazel bushes, and was rewarded by finding a clump of the curious little birds-nest fungus with its seeds packed like tiny eggs inside.  Some orange elf-cups, a bright red toadstool or two, and a few of the larger purple varieties that had lingered on from October made quite a creditable fungus record for the League, and specimens of wild flowers were also secured, a belated foxglove or two, a clump of ragwort, some blue harebells, campion, herb-robert, buttercup, yarrow, thistle, and actually a strawberry blossom.  The leaders had brought note-books and wrote down each find as reported by the members, taking the specimens for Miss Lever to verify if there were any doubt as to identification.  Animal and bird life was not absent.  Shy bunnies whisked away, showing a dab of white tail as they dived under the bracken; a splendid squirrel ran across the path and darted up an oak tree, a wood-pigeon whirred from a pine top, a great woodpecker, scared by their approach, started from the bushes and flew past them so near that they could see the green flash of its wings and the red markings on its head, while a whole fluttering flight of long-tailed tits were flitting like a troop of fairies round the hole of a lichen-covered beech.