Archibald’s thoughts ran back to the girl of the puppies and kittens and babies in the birch wood, to the girl of the fireside confidence and the Irish love songs, to the gay, grubby girl of the vegetable garden, to the girl of the June roses and the heart for neighboring. Then he came back to the girl of the boyish clothes and the dreaming face who rode beside him up the Witch Way, listening and looking and waiting for the Wonderful Thing; and he too found it easy to believe in wonders. The enchanted wood was having its way with him.
Up and up they climbed. The road rose very gradually, winding its leisurely way through glades and glens, losing itself among pine shadows, loafing across sunlit clearings; and always at its side was the brook, whispering and chuckling and hinting at mysteries.
“It comes from a great spring at the very top of the hill beside the witch’s cottage,” the Smiling Lady said as she leaned to watch the sunlight playing over smooth brown stones beneath the liquid green of a fern-fringed pool.
“I usually lunch up there—and by the same token I’ve sandwiches in my pockets now. Nature worship’s an appetizing thing and Ellen knows it, but I didn’t give her time to do her best to-day and it’s a nuisance to carry more than sandwiches anyway. Supper will be waiting when we go home.”
“You come up here often?” the man asked. Back of the question there was an eagerness, even a protest. It had occurred to him that Meredith and she had ridden up this way and lunched beside the Witch’s Well; and there was something about the idea that he found unpleasant, most unpleasant.
“Oh, yes, often,” she was saying.—“Or at least I did come when I had my horse. It’s a long walk and the road isn’t very practicable for driving. I’ve had beautiful days up here.”
He could not ask with whom she had shared them and he assured himself stoutly that the matter was of no importance to him anyway—only, of course, a man whom Peg and Nora didn’t like—Personally, he was altogether unconcerned. Oh, altogether—still he rather hoped she had not brought Meredith up Witch Way.
The road found the hilltop at last and wandered off, inconsequently along the ridge; but the brook and the Girl and the Man stayed behind at the Witch’s Well.
It lay cool and gleaming among moss-covered rocks. Little ferns and lush green grasses crept down between the rocks to peer into the water. A great old tree flung shadows down upon it. Under the tree a mossy cushion invited, promised.
The Smiling Lady slipped from her saddle before Archibald could reach her and dropped down beside the well with a sigh of content. When the man came back from tying the horses in the shade, she was leaning against the huge tree trunk, her hat thrown on the ground beside her—a Rosalind in ultra modern doublet and hose and fair enough to justify an Orlando in hanging verses on all the trees of the enchanted wood.