It wasn't bad, was it, Rose?"

"It was a bit stiff in one place!" Rose admitted. "I rather think we
took the wrong turn, Peggy. Did you say left, after the big pine?"

"No, right; you didn't come up that bank? Poor little V.! no wonder she
thinks she is killed. Let me take your hat off, V., and get you some
water or something."

But Viola refused to part with her hat. She sat panting and crimson, and
seemed really exhausted. Peggy eyed her with remorse. "I couldn't know
that you would take the wrong turn, could I?" she said. "I'm awfully
sorry!"

"Oh, but it was fine!" said Ethel Bird. "How do you find out all these
places, Peggy? This is just lovely, isn't it?"

"By looking," said Peggy. "I like to poke about, and I came on this the
other day. See, here's a little baby spring, trickling right out of the
rock here. Isn't it pretty? and the water is clear and cold as ice.
Shall I make you a leaf-cup, Viola? The best way, though, is to put your
mouth down and drink, this way."

"Oh, I never would do that!" cried Clara Fair. "Why, a snake might go
right down your throat, Peggy Montfort; truly it might. There was a
man--"

"Oh, don't talk about a man!" cried Rose Barclay. "How could you, Clara?
You remind me of my German lesson."

"I never said a word about your German lesson," said Clara, who was
literal and matter-of-fact.

"No, but you reminded me," said Rose, who was imaginative and poetic.
"All the morning I was saying to myself:

"'Der dickere Mann,
Des dickeren Mannes,
Dem dickeren Manne,
Den dickeren Mann.'"

"You seem to have learned it, anyhow," said Peggy, laughing.

"Oh, but that isn't all!" said Rose. "There is more horror. It goes on,
you know:

"'Die dickeren Manner,
Der dickeren Manner,
Den dickeren Mannern,
Die dickeren Manner.'"

"I think foreign languages are the silliest things in the world!"
declared Peggy. "Well, I do! Such perfect foolishness as they talk! I
have no patience with them."

"Well, but Peggy, they aren't foreign when they are at home!" protested
Ethel.

"Well, then, I wish they would stay at home. I don't know whether German
is so bad, though that sounds awful, all that you said just now, Rose;
but I have French; and I have to try to mince and simper, and twist my
mouth up into all kinds of shapes, just saying things that are too silly
to _be_ said. I wish there was a law that no one in this co