"What a good name! Who was she before she was turned into that?" She stopped, flushing. Alicia would think her stupid.
Alicia laughed pleasantly.
"Do you like fairy tales? You've come to the right place—the country-side's full of them. There's a fairy fort—Roman I suppose, really, and a haunted barn out beyond Dene Compton, besides Witch Hill and the Witch Wood just behind our house. There's a story, of course. I don't know it—you must ask Roger. He's always picking up stories."
"Roger?"
"My nephew, Roger Lumsden. Hasn't Elsbeth——?"
"Oh yes, of course."
"He's away just now. Look, now you can see the house properly."
"Behind the hill?" Alwynne had caught sight of a group of buildings crowning a secondary slope.
"No, no—that's the school, Dene Compton."
"A school?" Alwynne screwed up her eyes to look at it. "What a big place! Girls or boys?"