r and
faster fell the darkness; the girls linked arms to avoid getting
separated. They were both thoroughly frightened. Would they be obliged
to spend the night upon the moor? If there were only some means of
finding the way back to Glenbury!

Suddenly, a long distance in front of them, a light flashed out, as
though a candle had been placed in a cottage window. Hope revived. If
only they could reach some human habitation, they could ask to be
directed. They dragged their tired feet along, splashing in the dark
through puddles, sinking in soft ground, or stumbling over stones. It
seemed an interminable tramp before at last they struck the end of a
wall, and, feeling their way with their hands, groped along till they
reached a gate. The next moment they were rapping with their knuckles on
a door.

It was opened by a thin, middle-aged woman, who stared at them in
suspicious amazement as they asked to be directed to Glenbury; then,
seeing that they were only girls with their hair down their backs, she
cautiously invited them to come in. They accepted thankfully. After the
dark and the damp outside, the farm-kitchen seemed a haven of refuge.

A little boy, who had been sitting by the fireside, sprang up at their
entrance, and faced them with wondering eyes. Something in the small
figure seemed familiar. Diana's mind galloped rapidly back to a day in
late September when she had crawled along a tree-trunk across a racing
torrent, with a frightened, blue-jerseyed atom of humanity creeping
behind her.

"Gee-whiz! I guess you're Harry!" she exclaimed heartily.

The mental thermometer of the kitchen, which had stood at about
freezing-point, suddenly thawed into spring. Harry, recognizing his
former friend in need, hastily explained to his mother, who turned to
the girls with a light in her face.

"I've always wanted to thank you," she said to Diana; "but I never knew
who it was who'd helped Harry home that day. Sit you down, both of you,
by the fire. You'll let me make you a cup of tea?"

Rest, warmth, and tea were what the tired girls craved. They sat on the
settle, with a little round table in front of them, and ate the scones
and blackberry jam that with true northern hospitality were piled on
their plates. Harry's father came in presently, and, after a whispered
conversation with his wife in the back-kitchen, offered to take a
lantern and escort the girls back to Pendlemere.

"It's a goodish step, but you're rested