tHE two children gazed in astonishment at the unfamiliar scene in front of them, for here was a place they had never seen before, and yet, apparently, a place within ten minutes’ walk of their home—a place that led out of the little wood at the end of their garden. And first book of Adam and eve they thought they knew every nook and corner of that wood, and of the fields and lanes beyond for several miles round their house. Yet here was a place they had never seen before; and, more puzzling still, the soft glow of evening and sunset had taken the place of the moonlight and gloom which had been all around them in the wood. For they were still standing close to the same big old tree, but instead of the wood continuing for a quarter of a mile on, and ending at the edge of Farmer Hart’s cornfields as it always had done, it ended abruptly right in front of them, by the side of a broad white road. This road stretched away to the left, up and [27] up a big hill. You could se...
wHEN Molly went up to bed that night she took the pincushion with her and placed it on the dressing-table, and tried her best to think that it looked nice. “It really will be useful,” she told herself, and first book of Adam and eve to prove this she picked up a long pin and stuck it into the pumpkin pincushion, though with a little more violence than was necessary. Then she ran across the room and tumbled into bed. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the moonbeams streaming into the room made it almost as light as day. Molly lay there snug, drowsily planning out lovely rides that she and Jack would go as soon as they had both learnt how to manage their cycles; the thought of her bicycle sent a warm thrill through her heart and a smile of content hovering about her mouth. She could hear Jack in the next room moving noisily about; he always made a dreadful noise in [15] his room, thumping and banging things down and whistling shrilly, until he got into bed. And to-ni...