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As soon as it had fallen the barkers attacked it like locusts, and in a

short tier

li the upper parts, and there

she stood encaged a her tool into the smallest branches, beyond the farthest points

to which the skill and patience of the men enabled them to

proceed--branches which, in their lifetiht the latest and earliest rays of the sun

and moon while the lower part of the forest was still in darkness

"You seem to have a better instrument than they, Marty," said Fitzpiers

"No, sir," she said, holding up the tool--a horse's leg-bone fitted

into a handle and filed to an edge--"'tis only that they've less

patience with the twigs, because their time is worth more than mine"

A little shed had been constructed on the spot, of thatched hurdles and

boughs, and in front of it was a fire, over which a kettle sung

Fitzpiers sat down inside the shelter, and went on with his reading,

except when he looked up to observe the scene and the actors The

thought that he ht settle here and beco Grace Melbury crossed his o farther into the world than where he was? The secret of

quiet happiness lay in lihts were conterin of the Hintock woodlands,