really a very clever little boy, much cleverer than Bobby, and he learns everything too fast; and I always think that he is only imagining things so hard, that he feels obliged to tell them, just as we are all so fond of 'imagining,' only Paul, of course, ought not to mix it up with real truth, as he does.

But still I do not like to say anything against him; for I think I am most friends with Bobby, but I think I love Paul most.

VI.

ABOUT THE HAW.

You see, it began with us getting into mischief. It is rather a pity to have to own it, but still it is true.

One hot afternoon in June, after father and mother had come home, we were playing at savages in the orchard, with a heap of old peasticks for our wigwams. We were enjoying it very much, but we had not been able to find Paul when we began to play, which was tiresome, because only four savages are rather few, especially when we want to make a good noise. And though Paul cannot always understand our imagining games that we have taken from books, he does very well to fill up, and be tribe, or something of that sort.

So at last I said, 'This is so stupid to have no one to leave to take care of my wigwam when I go out to fight. Patricia has Annis, and Bobby has nobody, because of being a boy and hitting harder; but what have I got? I shall go and find Paul.'

'We will all come too,' said Patricia. 'We can cool down while we find him,' and she fanned herself with her pinafore, for savages is a game that needs a good deal of exertion.

'I think he went round to the wood-house to talk to Timothy,' said Bobby, and we all ran one after each other out of the orchard.

When we got down the shrubbery walk, there was Paul coming out from amongst the laurels on his hands and knees, as if he had been crawling. He stood up when he saw us, but he looked rather odd, and very dirty about the hands and knees. Also the front of his blouse was torn.

'Where have you been?' said Bobby, pouncing on him.

'Let me go,' said Paul, majestically, for he does not like any one to take liberties with him. Let me go amejantly!'

'Then say where you have been,' ordered Patricia. 'If you don't, I daresay we might have to tell somebody.'

'I have went in the Haw,' said Paul, sulkily.

'Oh, Paul, not really!' I could not help saying. He nodded. 'I have went often,' he said.

'Nell, he is only telling stories,' warned Patricia,

Paul shook his head very hard.

'Well, you know you couldn't get into the Haw from the garden, when we haven't got a gate in it at all.'

'I have my little door,' said Paul.

'Nell, it is no use talking to him any longer. He is only telling stories,' said Patricia.

Ow! I have went into the Haw!' shouted Paul, stamping. 'Then how did you get there?' said Patricia, putting on her magisterial look. We have never seen father on the bench, but we feel quite sure that he has exactly that look, because Patricia is so like him in the face, though not in anything else. often very proud of Patricia, and always very fond of her, but Bobby and I have agreed that sometimes she does get rather ordering; it always puts Bobby into an arguing mood, and Paul into an obstinate one. He began to look stubborn.

Paul, dear,' I said, as coaxingly as I could,' do be a nice little boy, and tell us how you got into the Haw.'

'Through an 'ole,' he said, sulkily, frowning at Patricia. 'A hole, where?'

'An 'ole in the hedge.'

'Oh, Paul, it is the yew hedge, and yards thick, you know it is!'

'There is an 'ole,' he said, obstinately.

'Well, do you think you could show us?'

'I don't know,' he said, gloomily. 'I think I don't want to show you.' Then he suddenly brightened up, because he is not an ill-natured little boy. 'I'll show you,' he said. 'Let you and me go into the Haw now.'

'But the others want to come, too, Paul, dear.'

'Werry well,' he said, quite generously, and he went down on his hands and knees, and began to crawl into the shrubbery. We all followed very solemnly, for we knew that if we laughed, he would stop. We went on quite through the shrubs; it was a nice little arched passage, and looked like a place that the dogs might have made in running through the shrubbery.

It began to be exciting. Paul crawled along quite confidently, as if he knew all about it, winding in and out, and sometimes.

lying almost flat and wriggling, for the shrubs were very thick. We came to the hedge at last. There was no hole, as we knew perfectly well, for it is an old yew hedge, very thick and high, and growing down to the ground like a green wall.

'There!' said Bobby, stopping and sitting back on his feet. 'I was sure it was stories, and now we shall have to tell, and you know what will happen. Oh!-well, I beg your pardon, and I say, how jolly!'

For Paul was taking no notice of him, but had found the place he wanted, and had pulled one of the branches back. There was a neat little round door.

Get out of the way,' said Bobby, in great delight. 'We are all coming out at once.'

So we all crawled through into the Haw, and the branch closed behind us, and we were outside.

We saw in a moment that it was one of the nicest places in the world. We had never been there before, because we had no gate into it, and nobody knew whether it really belonged to father, or to the house over there; and a long time ago there was a quarrel about it.

It was just a long, narrow piece of waste ground, with a cartroad running through the middle of it; but the ruts were all overgrown with grass, because it only led to fields. because it only led to fields. It lay on a little slope where the sunshine came, and all about the Haw were furze-bushes, quite yellow with flowers, and shining in the sun. It was so warm there, and so quiet, except for the bees humming amongst the furze, and that was only a sleepy sound; and there was a breath of wind that only made the smell of the furze stronger. We loved the Haw from the first

moment.

On the other side of the Haw was a high brick wall, and opposite to us were black doors in it, and we stood and looked at them, for we had seen the top of the wall from the branches of the Bon Chrétien-tree, and we knew quite well that this was an entrance to Bogy's Castle.

Over the doors hung I should think the biggest hawthorn that ever was seen. It was very old, and bent, and twisted, and it hung over the doors like a bower, much too pretty for an entrance to Bogy's Castle. The doors rather required to be painted, and I am afraid that it was we who burst the bubbles as high as we could reach them, while we stood there.

It curved in a little to the doors, but it was all grassy before

them, as if nobody ever opened them. The hawthorn-tree grew on the other side of the wall, but it was so big and twisted that it hung down on the outside; and it was flowering time, and the grass was covered with the little white leaves.

'I do wonder what it is like inside,' I said, in a low voice, as we stood bursting the last of the bubbles with our fingers. When I look at the doors, I cannot help thinking of Bogy waiting for me inside; and then I begin to feel my backbone very curious. Do you?"

'I know what you mean,' Bobby said. 'It feels very nasty. I do not know whether it is being a coward.'

'I am not afraid,' said Patricia, smoothing down her pinafore, and tossing her head.

'I am, rather,' I owned. 'I don't think I dare burst any more bubbles.'

'I would burst one, if there were one left,' said Bobby; 'but there isn't.'

And I thought he seemed rather relieved.

'Dare anybody knock at the door?' said Patricia.

It is a very unpleasant thing to be dared. Either you must own that you are afraid, which is not agreeable, or you must do the thing, which is worse. I did the first of the two. I said, 'I daren't,' and then I thought no one could expect me to do it.

Patricia tossed her head more, and said, 'I dare, if I want to do it.'

'Then do it!' said Bobby.

Patricia lifted the iron ring, and let it fall again, very softly, but it had knocked, and Bobby could not say that it had not. And just as she did it, I shouted, 'Bogy!'

It was only for fun, but everybody rushed, and Annis was halfway through our hedge before we burst out laughing. Then we did it again. Bobby knocked, and we shouted 'Bogy!' and tried which could be first through the gap.

After that Patricia said, 'I think we won't play at this game any more just now. I have torn the front of I have torn the front of my sun-bonnet. I don't know what nurse will say !'

'Yes, let us go up the Haw now,' said Bobby; 'but first Nell ought to knock too, to be fair.'

'She daren't,' said Patricia, scornfully.

'I dare,' I said, for by this time I thought that if Patricia could do it safely, I could; so I walked to the door and lifted

the ring, and knocked. And then-then the door of Bogy's Castle opened, and Bogy came out.

We saw him. And Paul had not told a story that day; it was every word true, for Bogy had a most dreadful black thing on his face, and he had only one arm, but he had two legs, and the nose of a great animal came round them.

It took us a moment to get our breaths, and then we all screamed 'Bogy!' in real earnest, but nobody could have told what we said.

I am sure I never saw Annis do anything so well in her life as the way in which she got through the gap. She took a little run from the middle of the cart ruts, we saw a pair of shoes kicking for a moment, and that was all. Patricia was the next nearest, and her head was through the gap in a second, close behind Annis's heels; but she is rather a big girl for her age, and a smothered shriek plainly told that she had stuck fast. I saw Patricia plunging and screaming, 'Oh, I'm fast! I'm fast!' and Bobby thumping her, and saying, 'Get in or come out! Get in or come out!' and then as I ran, I caught my foot in the deepest rut, and rolled over and over in the middle of the Haw.

It seemed as if I had been on the ground for hours, but it could only have been a minute, for when I lifted my head up, and rubbed the dust out of my eyes, Patricia was still kicking, half in the garden and half in the Haw, and Bobby was still first drawing her out, and then pushing her in, while we culd hear a stifled voice shouting, 'Pull, Annis, pull! Bobby, u don't give over I'll tell nurse!'

The first thing I remember was feeling something colat tid wet in my neck. It was the nose of the great animal smaong at me. I think I screamed, and then some one pushed lim away; and some one also put a hand under my arm, and lited me up. I could not run away now, and I did not know how to faint, so I stood and trembled.

It was Bogy who had lifted me up, and the animal was a great shaggy dog, as Paul had seen in a moment, like nching but the picture of the Great Bear in the tale of the Three lears. And then Bogy stooped down, and said, 'Do not be frightened, little one, he will not touch you. Are you hurt?'

When I saw the black thing so close to my face, I put my hands before my eyes, and shook my head, and tried to turn away. He pretended not to know what I was afraid of, and