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give me an incentive to do something unspeakably rash, such as clearing out the groundsel along the path. And if I’m going to the trouble of pulling the groundsel, I’ll invite a few friends, so you can get acquainted. I promise not to overwhelm you, though. Would four o’clock suit?”
    “Of course,” Beatrix said, admiring Miss Woodcock’s easy friendliness and casual manner. Apart from her cousin Caroline Hutton and Norman’s sister Millie, she did not have friends in the usual way. It might be comforting to have someone to talk with from time to time—not on this first day, but later. And no doubt Dimity Woodcock knew everything about the village and its inhabitants, for she and her brother had lived here for quite a long time.
    Beatrix turned now, and went along the road, past Buckle Yeat Cottage, which had a lovely garden within a fence made of large slabs of slate, standing on end. In the twilight, the village looked just as she remembered it from her earlier visits, and the sight of the little cluster of slate-roofed cottages tucked into the lap of a gentle green hill brought her a quiet calm, a peaceful at-home feeling that was difficult to explain—especially to her parents, who professed to find everything about her decision completely inexplicable. They had enjoyed their visits to the Lakes as much as they liked visiting anywhere, but having exhausted all the local distractions, professed to find Sawrey frightfully dull. And while her father reluctantly acknowledged that a farm might be a prudent way for Beatrix to invest her growing income, her mother was aghast at the thought of her daughter actually spending time away from Bolton Gardens.
    To be sure, there was nothing very extraordinary about the hamlet. As Beatrix turned from the main road into Market Street, she could look to her right and see Meadowcroft Cottage, which housed the village shop, and through the open door glimpse Lydia Dowling in her embroidered apron, having a cup of tea with her niece Gladys, who helped out twice a week. Across the narrow lane was Miss Tolliver’s Anvil Cottage, where a disconsolate-looking calico cat sat on the stoop, and High Green Gate Farm was just up the hill, with Tower Bank House behind it. Next door to the shop was Rose Cottage, where Grace Lythecoe had lived since Vicar Lythecoe died some ten years ago, and then George Crook’s smithy and after that Roger Dowling’s joinery (Roger was Lydia’s husband). Off to the right, up a narrow lane, was Low Green Gate Cottage and the village post office. The streets were deserted, except for Spuggy Pritchard toiling away with his cart at the top of the lane. There was no village green, and St. Peter’s Church and Sawrey School were a ten-minute walk away, in Far Sawrey. Altogether, it had to be said that Near Sawrey was not a very prepossessing village, although comfortable in its way, with an almost eighteenth-century air about it.
    But as Beatrix turned to look westward, toward the majestic Coniston fells rising against a sunset sky painted with lavender and gold, she knew very well what had brought her here. This was October, the trees of Cuckoo Brow Woods were as richly colored as a medieval tapestry, and the meadows along Esthwaite Water, still green, were dotted with serenely grazing sheep and black-and-white cows and flocks of white geese. When she first visited the village with her parents some ten years before, she had thought it as nearly perfect a little place as one might imagine, the people hard-working and earthy and old-fashioned. The whole place had seemed somehow to speak to a deep and compelling sense of home and hearth, deep inside her. She felt that same sense again now, and she pulled in a deep breath, thinking with pleasure that finally, at last, she had come home.
    Then, as she walked up Market Street to Belle Green, Beatrix reflected that perhaps a large part of her pleasure in coming here lay in the fact that she was not known in the