ys, and accustomed to
plenty of exercise, and the keen fresh air soon made her glow all over,
as she ran along the smooth, hard road.

Bob had fixed on a certain corner as the best meeting-place. This was
the end of a short lane, which led on to the moor at a point Rosamond
had never come out at. But it was easy to find, and a short distance
farther on, by following one of the small paths in a line with the lane,
the boy had explained to her that she would soon come to a sort of dip
in the ground, where there was a thick clump of shrubs.

'And there, missie, if I don't meet you before, you'll be certain sure
to see me a-comin' over from the other side, as fast as I can get along.
It won't be dark by then--and p'raps it'll be a moonlight night, unless
the clouds thicken up for snow.'

It did seem, all the same, rather gloomy in the lane--'because of the
trees and the hedges,' thought Miss Mouse--and certainly when she got
to the end and came out on the moor, it looked a little lighter.

She stood still and looked about her, drawing a deep breath. But she
felt a little disappointed; the moor here seemed quite different from up
at Moor Edge--it was so much lower, more like a rough field.

'I don't care for it a bit down here,' she thought. 'And then it's so
much, much farther to get to, than at the boys'. Why, there you run
almost straight out of the garden on to the dear real moor. I quite know
the way Archie and the others feel about it.'

She trotted on--straight on, as Bob had directed, and before very long
she came to the little hollow with the clump of bushes in the centre
which he had described. But there was no Bob there, and at first her
heart went down a little--supposing he had not been able to come,
supposing the people he owed the money to had refused after all to wait
till to-morrow morning, and had done something dreadful--put him in
prison, perhaps, for Miss Mouse's ideas as to what might or might not be
done to people, poor boys especially, who owed money, were very vague,
or gone to frighten old Nance--oh dear, dear, what a pity it was,
thought the little girl, that she had not taken her purse and all her
riches with her to Weadmere that afternoon. Then she might have given
Bob the six shillings at once, and not run any risk of delay, or have
needed to come out to meet him in the--yes, it was almost getting to be
the dark--and Rosamond gave a little shiver. But at that moment a
welcome sound fell on