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 now, maybe, and it's no use risking missing the 'bus at Glenbury, and having to walk it after all." A very tired Diana, and an equally weary Wendy arrived at the school just when Miss Todd was getting absolutely desperate about their absence. She had sent Miss Chadwick to Athelton to meet the seven o'clock omnibus, and the teacher had returned to report that they had not come on it. Miss Todd forbore to scold two such limp wrecks, and sent them straight upstairs, with orders for hot baths, bed, and basins of bread-and-milk. Explanations were reserved for next day, and they did not get off scot free by any means. Miss Todd had an aggravatingly mathematical mind. She calculated the time the omnibus left the market-place, the exact moment when she herself started in the trap from the Queen's Hotel, the distance between these two given points, and in how many minutes at the rate of not less than three miles an hour two ordinary walkers should accomplish it. The answer left ten whole minutes to spare, and of that ten minutes of the afternoon she demanded a strict account from Diana and Wendy. The sinners, whose bones still ached after their adventure, appeared in such crushed spirits that they did not receive the entire scolding their head mistress had intended, and were for once dismissed with a caution.