"You'd have the brook, too."
"I hope she'll be able to get it. Of course just this piece is awfully pretty, and this is the only place for a house, but the meadow with the brook and the rocks and the woods at the back would be too lovely for words. Why, you'd feel as if you had an estate."
The girls laughed at Dorothy's enthusiasm over the small number of acres that were included even in the combined lots of land, but they agreed with her that the additional land offered a variety that was worth working hard to obtain.
They made their way up the slope and among the jumble of rocks that looked as if giants had been tossing them about in sport. Small trees grew from between them as they lay heaped in disorder and taller growths stretched skyward from an occasional open space. The brook began in a spring that bubbled clear and cold, from under a slab of rock. Round about it all was covered with moss, still green, though frozen stiff by the snowstorm's chilly blasts. Shrivelled ferns bending over its mouth promised summer beauties.
"What a lovely spot!" cried Ethel Blue. "This is where fairies and wood nymphs live when that drift melts. Don't you know this must be a great gathering place for birds? Can't you see them now dipping their beaks into the water and cocking their heads up at the sky afterwards!" and she quoted:—
"Dip, birds, dip
Where the ferns lean over,
And their crinkled edges drip,
Haunt and hover."
"Here's the best place yet!" called Dorothy, who had pushed on and was now out of sight.