a hundred mysteriously closed rooms and having
nothing whatever to do to amuse herself, had set
her inactive brain to working and was actually
awakening her imagination. There is no doubt
that the fresh, strong, pure air from the moor had a
great deal to do with it. Just as it had given her
an appetite, and fighting with the wind had stirred
her blood, so the same things had stirred her mind.
In India she had always been too hot and languid
and weak to care much about anything, but in this
place she was beginning to care and to want to do
new things. Already she felt less "contrary,"
though she did not know why.

She put the key in her pocket and walked up
and down her walk. No one but herself ever
seemed to come there, so she could walk slowly and
look at the wall, or, rather, at the ivy growing on
it. The ivy was the baffling thing. Howsoever
carefully she looked she could see nothing but
thickly-growing, glossy, dark green leaves. She
was very much disappointed. Something of her
contrariness came back to her as she paced the
walk and looked over it at the tree-tops inside. It
seemed so silly, she said to herself, to be near it
and not be able to get in. She took the key in her
pocket when she went back to the house, and she
made up her mind that she would always carry
it with her when she went out, so that if she

[[86]]

p085 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p086w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p087

v?