We went across the fields, intending to skirt the woods at the
back of Uncle Alec's farm and find a lane that cut through Uncle
Roger's woods; but before we came to it we stumbled on a sly,
winding little path quite by accident--if, indeed, there can be
such a thing as accident in the woods, where I am tempted to think
we are led by the Good People along such of their fairy ways as
they have a mind for us to walk in.
"Go to, let us explore this," said Uncle Blair. "It always drags
terribly at my heart to go past a wood lane if I can make any
excuse at all for traversing it: for it is the by-ways that lead
to the heart of the woods and we must follow them if we would know
the forest and be known of it. When we can really feel its wild
heart beating against ours its subtle life will steal into our
veins and make us its own for ever, so that no matter where we go
or how wide we wander in the noisy ways of cities or over the lone
ways of the sea, we shall yet be drawn back to the forest to find
our most enduring kinship."
"I always feel so SATISFIED in the woods," said the Story Girl
dreamily, as we turned in under the low-swinging fir boughs.
"Trees seem such friendly things."
"They are the most friendly things in God's good creation," said
Uncle Blair emphatically.
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