r.
Seth. I must. I'm so thankful that he didn't leave the mountain, too,
with all the other grown-ups. So you can drop me at Helena's; and then
you and Molly can drive around to all the other people we've decided
to ask and invite them in my stead. You know where all of them live
and Molly will go with you."

"Can Alfy drive--safe?" asked Molly, rather anxiously.

Dolly laughed. "Anybody can drive gentle Portia and Alfy is a mountain
girl. But what a funny question for such a fearless rider as you,
Molly Breckenridge!"

"Not so funny as you think. It's one thing to be on the back of a
horse you know and quite another to be behind the heels of another
that its driver doesn't know! Never mind, Alfy. I'll trust you."

"You can," Alfaretta complacently assured her; and the morning's drive
proved her right. A happier girl had never lived than she as she thus
acted deputy for the new little mistress of Deerhurst; whose story had
lost none of its interest for the mountain folk because of its latest
development.

But it was not at all as a proud young heiress that Dorothy came at
last to the shop under the Great Balm Tree and threw herself
impetuously upon the breast of the farrier quietly reading beside his
silent forge.

"O, Mr. Seth! My darling Mr. Seth! I'm in terrible trouble and only
you can help me!"

His book went one way, his spectacles another, dashed from his hands
by her heedless onrush; but he let them lie where they had fallen and
putting his arm around her, assured her:

"So am I. Therefore, let us condole with one another. You first."

"I've lost Aunt Betty's hundred dollars!"

Her friend fairly gasped, and held her from him to search her troubled
face.

"Whe-ew! That is serious. Yet lost articles are sometimes found. Out
with the whole story, 'body and bones'--as my man Owen would say."

Already relieved by the chance of telling her worries, Dorothy related
the incidents of the night, and she met the sympathy she expected. But
it was like the nature-loving Mr. Winters that he was more disturbed
by the loss of the great chestnut tree than by that of the money.
Also, the story of the stranger she had found wandering by the
lily-pond moved him deeply. All suffering or afflicted creatures were
precious in the sight of this noble old man and he commented now with
pity on the distress of the friends from whom the unknown one had
strayed.

"How grieved they'll be! For it must have been from some priv