ABSTRACT
Adjoining to the estate where Mrs. Stafford resided, a tract of forest land, formerly a chase and now the property of a collegiate body, deeply indents the arable ground beyond it, and fringes the feet of the green downs which rise above it. This part of the country is called Woodbury Forest; and the deep shade of the beech trees with which it is covered, is broken by wild and uncultured glens; where, among the broom, hawthorn and birch of the waste, a few scattered cottages have been built upon sufferance by the poor for the convenience of fewel, so amply afforded by the surrounding woods. Mrs. Stafford had been accustomed to buy poultry of the woman who lived at this cottage, and therefore went in, in hopes of finding some vestige of the person they had seen, which might lead to an enquiry.
