return, bringing
Floretta with them.

Mrs. Dainty and Aunt Charlotte remained with Mrs. Paxton, who seemed to
have lost all control of herself.

One moment she would cry as if her heart would break, and then she
would spring up, threatening to follow the direction that the men had
taken, and try to reach the woods, thus to sooner see her little girl.

At last, after what seemed endless waiting, but was actually only an
hour, some one espied the men in the distance, and cried out:

"They're coming! They're coming!"

"Have they got Floretta? Oh, _have_ they found her?" shrieked Mrs.
Paxton.

"We can't see from here," said the one who had spoken, and the mother
rushed forward, shading her eyes with her hand, and straining to catch
the first glimpse of her child.

She would have rushed down the road to meet them, but Mrs. Dainty held
her back. She had seen that they were carrying Floretta, and she
thought, in case the child were injured, the mother would far better
save her strength.

Two of the men had clasped their hands to form an "arm-chair," and thus
they brought to the piazza, a very limp, tired Floretta, whose vivacity
was all gone, and whose face bore the trace of desperate weeping, while
her arms and hands were covered with cuts and bruises, and her little
frock was torn and tattered by her struggle with the tough and tightly
knotted vines.

She lay back against the shoulder of one man who supported her, and
looked as if her strength were spent.

She changed on the instant that they set her on her feet.

Rushing to her mother, she permitted her to clasp her for a moment to
her breast, then turning to the group that gathered around her, she
cried fiercely:

"Look! See my hands! See my arms! See the scratches, where I tried to
get away, and it was Sidney Cumston who tied me! He _did_ it, but the
other boys _let_ him. Not one tried to hinder him except Jack Tiverton,
the littlest one of them all. He tried to make them let me go, but they
wouldn't. Oh, somebody punish all but Jack! He _tried_, but he couldn't
help me."

She was hysterical, and sank to the floor of the piazza, sobbing, and
crying, before her mother could catch her.

She scrambled to her feet, and was clasped in her mother's arms.

Old Mr. Cunningham surprised every one by speaking most kindly to her.
She had so often tormented him that it seemed generous that he should
offer a bit of comfort.

"I don't think we shall let those youn