I think, as a rule, children are very brave.  But a light heart goes a long way towards courage.  At first Amabel made desperate and knee-grazing efforts to reclimb the wall, and, failing, burst into tears, and danced, and called aloud on all her protectors, from the Squire to Miles.  No one coming, she restrained her tears, and by a real effort of that “pluck” for which the Ammaby race is famous began to run along the wall to find a lower point for climbing.  In doing so, she startled a squirrel, and whizz!—­away he went up a lanky tree.  What a tail he had!  Amabel forgot her terrors.  There was at any rate some living thing in the wood besides Bogy; and she was now busy trying to coax the squirrel down again by such encouraging noises as she had found successful in winning the confidence of kittens and puppies.  Amabel was the victim of that weakness for falling in love with every fussy, intelligent, or pitiable beast she met with, which besets some otherwise reasonable beings, leading to an inconvenient accumulation of pets in private life, though doubtless invaluable in the public services of people connected with the Zoological Gardens.

The squirrel sat under the shadow of his own tail, and winked.  He had not the remotest intention of coming down.  Amabel was calmer now, and she looked about her.  The eglantine bushes were shoulder-high, but she had breasted underwood in the shrubberies, and was not afraid.  Up, up, stretched the trees to where the sky shone blue.  The wood itself sloped downwards; the spotted arums pushed boldly through last year’s leaves, which almost hid the violets; there were tufts of primroses, which made Amabel cry out, and about them lay the exquisite mauve dog-violets in unplucked profusion.  And hither and thither darted the little birds; red-breasts and sparrows, and yellow finches and blue finches, and blackbirds and thrushes, with their cheerful voices and soft waistcoats, and, indeed, every good quality but that of knowing how glad one would be to kiss them.  In a few steps, Amabel came upon a path going zig-zag down the steep of the wood, and, nodding her hooded head determinedly, she said, “Amabel is going a walk.  I don’t mind Bogy,” and followed her nose.

It is a pity that one’s skirt, when held up, does not divide itself into compartments, like some vegetable dishes.  One is so apt to get flowers first, and then lumps of moss, which spoil the flowers, and then more moss, which, earth downwards (as bread and butter falls), does no good to the rest.  Amabel had on a nice, new dress, and it held things beautifully.  But it did not hold enough, for at each step of the zig-zag path the moss grew lovelier.  She had got some extinguisher-moss from the top of the wall, and this now lay under all the rest, which flattened the extinguishers.  About half way down the dress was full, and some cushion-moss appeared that could not be passed by.  Amabel sat down and reviewed her treasures.  She could part with