Chapter 2 - (VERSO)

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when she came out at the little plank bridge over the brook down under the beeches she felt almost gentle and tender once more. There was one big beech there, in particular, which the Old Lady loved for reasons best known to herself — a great, tall beech with a trunk like the shaft of a gray marble column and a leafy spread of branches over the still, golden-brown pool made beneath it by the brook. It had been a young sapling in the days that were haloed by the vanished glory of the Old Lady’s life.

The Old Lady heard childish voices and laughter afar up the lane which led to William Spencer’s place just above the woods. William Spencer’s front lane ran out to the