"Only one more hill and two bends!" the thought sent them trudging on with renewed spirit, and the hill was climbed before they realised it. Then one bend in the road was rounded, then the other, and there in the distance could be seen the milestone. But, except for the milestone, the road was empty! "Why, father isn't there!" cried Bella disappointedly; "he is late." "P'raps somebody has met him, and kept him talking," suggested Tom; "we shall see him hurrying along in a minute." So they finished the rest of the distance with their eyes eagerly scanning the white road stretching away before them. "We will have a rest here, shall we?" said Bella, placing her baskets on the ground by the old grey stone; "he won't be more than a few minutes, I expect. Oh, I am so tired, aren't you?" Tom, seated on the milestone, only nodded, his eyes never wandered from the road along which their father was to come. It was very still and quiet there, almost oppressively so. No one passed, and no sound, except the voices of the birds and the distant mooing of a cow, broke the silence. "P'raps after all we'd better go on," said Bella at last, after restlessly fidgeting about, and staring along the dirty road until her eyes ached. "It doesn't seem to be much use waiting," said Tom quietly, and they started on their way again, but far less cheerfully now. Indeed, for such a trifling and easily explained incident, their spirits were strangely cast down. A dozen simple things might have happened to prevent their father's coming; he might have been detained at his work, or have met some one, and be staying talking to them; or he might have been busy and have forgotten the time. Perhaps it was because they were over-tired and hungry, and in the state to look on the gloomy side of things, that they could not take a cheerful view of the matter, or shake off the feeling of depression which filled them. Whether this was so or not, they felt anxious and troubled, and all the sunshine and pleasure seemed to have gone out of their day. It was almost as though a foreboding of the truth had come to them--that when they left the old milestone they were leaving their light-heartedness and childhood behind them, never quite to find them again. Never, at any rate, the same. When they left it they set their faces towards a long, dark road, with many a weary hill and many a desolate space to cross, and with a heavier burden to bear than any they had yet borne. Had they known, their hearts might have failed them altogether, perhaps, though the way was not to be all as dark and stony for their tired feet, as at first it had seemed to promise. There would be sunshine on the road for them too, and pleasant resting-places.