meet the little
market-women. Once, twice thrice she walked to the corner of the
road--they were not to be seen, and she was beginning to fear the
temptations of the shops had delayed them unduly, when they suddenly came
in view; and the moment they caught sight of her familiar figure off they
set, as if touched at the same instant by an electric thrill, running
towards her like two lapwings.

"Dear grandmother, how good of you to come to meet us," said Sylvia. "We
have got such nice things. They are in Marcelline's basket," nodding
back towards Marcelline, jogging along after them in her usual deliberate
fashion.

"_Such_ nice things," echoed Molly. "But oh, grandmother dear, you don't
know what we saw. We met Ralph in the town, and I'm sure he didn't want
us to see him, for what _do_ you think he was doing?"

A chill went through poor grandmother's heart. In an instant she pictured
to herself all manner of scrapes Ralph might have got into. Had her
thoughts of him this very afternoon been a sort of presentiment of evil?
She grew white, so white that even in the already dusky light, Sylvia's
sharp eyes detected it, and she turned fiercely to Molly, the heedless.

"You naughty girl," she said, "to go and frighten dear little grandmother
like that. And only this very morning or yesterday grandmother was
explaining to you about tact. Don't be frightened, dear grandmother.
Ralph wasn't doing anything naughty, only I daresay he didn't want us to
see."

"But what _was_ he doing?" said grandmother, and Molly, irrepressible
still, though on the verge of sobs, made answer before Sylvia could
speak.

"He was carrying wood, grandmother dear," she said--"big bundles, and
another boy with him too. I think they had been out to the little forests
to fetch it. It was fagots. But I _didn't_ mean to frighten you,
grandmother; I _didn't_ know it was untact to tell you--I have been
thinking all day about what you told me."

"Carrying wood?" repeated grandmother, relieved, though mystified. "What
can he have been doing that for?"

"I think it is a plan of his. I am sure it is nothing naughty," said
Sylvia, nodding her head sagely. "And if Molly will just leave it alone
and say _nothing_ about it, it will be all right, you will see. Ralph
will tell you himself, I'm sure, if Molly will not tease."

"I won't, I promise you I won't," said Molly; "I won't say anything about
it, and if Ralph asks me if we saw him I'll screw up my lips