apping them in
paper, deposited them inside the hollow trunk of the tree.

'Now,' he said, 'we must all divide, and go in search for adventures; and
when we've found them, we can come back and tell the others here, and
then we'll have a feast.'

'And if we don't find any?' questioned Betty doubtfully.

'Then you must go on till you do. Why, of course a wood is full of
dangers. I mean to have an _awful_ time. We must go two and two; Molly
and I will take this path, and the twins can take that one, and you,
Betty, must go by yourself, because you're the odd one.'

'I always have to go alone,' murmured Betty; 'it isn't fair.'

Bobby and Billy stood clasping each other's hands, and looking with
anxious though determined faces along the path mapped out for them.

'And if we should meet a cwocodile?' Billy asked, lifting his blue eyes
to those of his big brother.

'Then you must either kill it or run away,' said Douglas. 'And
crocodiles don't live in woods.'

'And if we lose ourselves in the wood?' questioned Bobby.

'If you're frightened, you needn't go, but stay here till we come back,'
put in Molly, her conscience a little uneasy with turning such little
fellows loose on their own resources.

But this gave the twins courage. Frightened! Not a bit of it! And they
trotted off, calling out they were going to kill every one they met.

Betty likewise started on her journey. She was feeling rather depressed
with the truth of which she was always being reminded--namely, that she
was the odd one.

'I wish there had just been one more of us,' she kept saying to herself;
'I'm either one too many or one too few, and it's very dull to be always
alone.'

But her thoughts soon left herself when she saw some rabbits scudding
away in the distance; and the flowers on her path, and the strangeness of
her surroundings, were quite enough to occupy her mind. She soon found
that her path was coming to an end; right across it was some fine wire
netting, and for a moment she hesitated, then, deciding to go straight
on, clambered over it with great difficulty. The grass was smoother
here, and the path a wide one; a little distance farther was an iron
seat, and then she came to a long, straight grass walk, with trees on
either side, and at the end a gate, in an old stone wall.

'I shall have to get through that gate,' she mused, 'or else I must climb
the wall. I wonder what is inside! It might be anything--a castle, with