es.

Frightened, but with determination, she commenced to walk rapidly in the
direction she believed would lead her out. The bushes now caught at her
unheeded. She tore through briers, popples, moose-maples alike. The
chiffon was sadly marred, the picture-hat stained and awry, the brave
little shoes with their silver buckles and their pointed high heels were
dull with wet. And suddenly, as the sun shadows began to lift in the
late afternoon, her determined stock of fortitude quite ran out. She
stopped short. All about her were the same straight towering trunks, the
saplings, the undergrowth. Nothing had changed. It was useless.

She dropped to the ground and gave way to her wild terror, weeping with
the gulping sobs of a frightened child, but even in extremity dabbing
her eyes from time to time with an absurd tiny handkerchief of
drawn-work border.

Poor little Barbara: she was lost!

II

After a while, subtly, she felt that someone was standing near her. She
looked up.

The somebody was a man. He was young. Barbara saw three things--that he
had kindly gray eyes, which just now were twinkling at her amusedly;
that the handkerchief about his neck was clean; and that the line of his
jaw was unusually clear cut and fine. An observant person would have
noticed further that the young man carried a rifle and a pack, that he
wore a heavily laden belt about his waist, and moccasins on his feet,
that his blue-flannel shirt, though clean, was faded, that his skin was
as brown as pine-bark. Barbara had no use for such details. The eye was
kindly, the jaw was strong, the neatness indicated the gentleman. And a
strong, kindly gentleman was just what poor little lost Barbara needed
the most. Unconsciously she tilted her pointed chin forward adorably,
and smiled.

"Oh, now it's all right, isn't it?" said she.

"I am glad," he replied, the look of amusement deepening in his gray
eyes. "And a moment ago it was all wrong. What was the matter?"

"I am lost," answered Barbara, contentedly, as one would say, "My shoes
are a little dusty."

"That's bad," sympathised the other. "Where are you lost from?"

"The Adamses' or the Maxwells', I don't know which. I started to go from
one to the other. Then there was the deer, and so I got lost."

"I see," he agreed with entire assurance. "And now what are you going to
do?"

"I am not going to do anything. You are to take me home."

"To the Adamses or the Maxwells?"

"To whichev