ence of their aunts, and perhaps telling tales. So, after wrapping
Eric up warmly in a big woolly shawl, she tucked him into his
perambulator and set off up the glen road, past the wood and the
turnip-field, to Copsley Farm, expecting at every turn to meet Darby and
Joan rushing towards her on their homeward way. But no such interruption
to her progress occurred.

When she reached the farm an unpleasant surprise awaited her. Neither
Darby nor Joan had been there that day--not since the Friday, said Mrs.
Grey; and she was disappointed, because, having heard that the ladies
were going from home without the children, she quite expected they would
have lost no time in paying her a visit.

At that moment Mr. Grey came in from the barn, where he had been
threshing corn all the afternoon. He was tired, heated, and hungry for
his tea, and only laughed when his wife told him that the little folks
from Firgrove had gone amissing.

"Well, an' what if they have?" he exclaimed, in his loud, hearty voice.
"That needn't scare you. Aren't they always gettin' into trouble o' some
kind or another, the pair o' them? Why, sure it's only the other day
there that I found them wandered in Copsley Wood, like two motherless
lambs! They were lost, the little 'un told me, quite lost! An' there
they were sittin', the two o' them, on the stump o' an old tree, wrapped
in one another's arms, for all the world like the babes in the wood--an'
not more'n half a dozen yards from the highway!"

"An' that's where they are now, sure enough," said Mrs. Grey, in a tone
of conviction. "They'll have gone back after them squirrels that led
them such a dance on Friday! What do you think, Miss Perry?" she asked
anxiously.

"I am certain of it too, now that you mention it," replied nurse,
looking aghast at the thought. "Miss Joan was fair wild to get a
squirrel; and Master Darby, he's that venturesome he would face
anything. He doesn't know the meaning of fear for all he's so gentle and
innocent-like. And Miss Joan follows him just like a dog. Dear, dear--to
think of it!"

"You may well say that, for Copsley Wood's no place for them to be in by
themselves," said Mrs. Grey, eyeing nurse with some disapproval in her
glance.

"It's no place for decent people, let alone children," retorted Perry
in her turn. "It was no further back than yesterday that the butcher's
young man was telling me that a couple of gipsies or tramps have set up
their tent there. He was