"You said so when we were reading Mr. Stevenson's 'Travels with a Donkey' aloud to Aunt Mary," Betty stated eagerly, as if the others would find it hard to believe her grandaunt. Somehow, a stranger would have found it difficult to believe that Miss Leicester had unsatisfied desires about gypsying. Mary Beck was deeply astonished; she had a huge admiration for her dignified neighbor across the way, and yet it was always a little perilous to her ease of mind and self-possession to find herself in Miss Leicester's company. Many a time, in the days before Betty came to Tideshead, she had walked to and fro before the old house hoping to be spoken to or called in for a visit, and yet was too shy to properly answer a kind good-morning when they met. Aunt Barbara used to think that Becky was a dull girl, but they were already better friends. It took a long time to rouse Becky's enthusiasm, but when roused it burned with steady flame. To think that she should be camping out with Miss Leicester! But Mr. Leicester and Betty and Becky were soon at work making their camp, and the novices took their first lesson in woodcraft. The young men, Harry Foster and Seth, came ashore bringing the tender loaded deep with tents and blankets, some of them from Jonathan's carefully kept chests in the carriage-house, and Miss Leicester wondered again how anybody had contrived to get so many things from the house to the boat without her knowledge. There were two sharp hatchets, and presently Seth and Harry were dispatched to gather some dry wood for the fire, though until near evening the tents need not be put up nor the last arrangements made for sleeping. By and by everybody could help either to cut or carry hemlock and spruce boughs for the beds. Betty helped her father to roll some stones together for a fireplace just at the edge of the river beach, and pleased him very much by rolling a heavy one up to the top of the heap on a piece of board which had washed ashore, just as she had seen farmers do in building a stone wall. Mary Beck, in a trepidation of delight, was helping Miss Barbara Leicester unpack the baskets, to see what should be eaten for dinner and what should be kept for future meals, when Mr. Leicester called them. "Aunt Barbara," he proclaimed, "I am not going to let you keep tent; you only know how to keep house; and beside, you mustn't do what you always do at home. Let the girls manage dinner and you come with me, now that the fire is started. I have thought of an errand." Miss Leicester meekly obeyed; she was ready for anything, having once cast off, as she said, all obligation to society, and with a few parting charges to Betty about the provisions she disappeared among the pines with her nephew. "Isn't it fun?" said Mary Beck, and she put on such a comical face when Betty sedately quoted, "What is that, mother? A lark, my child,"