claimed Bunny.

"It's like a play-house!" cried Sue. "Don't you wish we had that,
Bunny?"

"Yes, I do. But we couldn't have it; could we?" and he looked up into
the face of the hermit.

"No, I'm afraid not, little boy. I need it to live in, and to keep the
rain and snow from me."

"Oh, do you stay here in the winter?" asked Sue, surprised.

"Yes."

"Isn't it cold?"

"Sometimes. But I have a fireplace, and I pile on logs, and make a hot
fire. Then I am warm."

"I'd like it here in winter," said Bunny. "Do you slide down hill, Mr.
Hermit?"

"No, I'm too old for that, little boy. But come in now, and I'll give
you something to eat. Then I'll take you home. I'll try and get you
there before dark, so your folks won't be worried. They may be out
hunting for you now."

"They always look for us when we get lost," said Sue.

"But we didn't know we were going to get lost this time," added Bunny.

The hermit set out two plates, with some slices of bread on them. Then
from down in his spring, where he kept it cool, he brought a pail of
milk. Soon Bunny and Sue were eating a nice little supper. It was
lighter in the log cabin than it had been in the woods, for the trees
were cut down around the hermit's home.

"Oh, Bunny!" exclaimed Sue, as she drank the last of her milk. "Oh,
Bunny, we forgot to look for them!"

"Look for what?" Bunny wanted to know, as he crumbled some more bread
into his bowl of milk. "What did we forget to look for, Sue?"

"Grandpa's horses. The Gypsies took them and didn't bring them back,"
she explained, so the hermit would know what she and Bunny were talking
about.

"The Gypsies took your grandpa's horses, little girl?"

"Yes. They borrowed them, grandpa says, but they didn't bring them back.
I guess maybe the Gypsies got lost, Bunny, and that's why they didn't
bring the horses back. But we looked all over, and we couldn't find
them, Mr. Hermit."

"I almost found one," said Bunny. "It was a horse walking along the
road. But it wasn't grandpa's."

"And a cow tickled Bunker Blue in the ribs, when he was sleeping under
our automobile," Sue explained. "I mean Bunker was sleeping, not the
cow. The cow was eating grass, she was, and her horns tickled Bunker."

The hermit shook his head.

"You are queer children," he said. "But tell me about your grandpa's
horses."

Between them, one telling part, and the other helping, Bunny and Sue
told the story of the Gypsies taking Grandpa Brown'