"I think the long tramp is a rougher form of amusement than I can well endure. I should be so weary long before it was time to return, that I should derive but little pleasure from the trip. There is another thought in connection with the picnic," she continued, "and that is an element of danger. Not great danger perhaps, but such that I would not join the party, nor would I permit Dorothy, or Nancy to do so. One gentleman who was talking of the mountain path that they have chosen, spoke of the great danger to the climbers from small, rolling stones, and from places where the earth seems to crumble near the edge of the narrow foot-path. A careless step might lead to a fall that would mean, I hardly dare to say what!" Dorothy and Nancy had been wishing to join the party, but upon hearing this, they lost all interest in it, and had cheerfully taken the drive behind gentle Romeo, instead. Now, as Dorothy sat with Nancy's arms about her, she was glad that they had not been permitted to go, and she heartily wished that Floretta had remained at the Cleverton. "Had she rolled from the path, and fallen, fallen,--" Dorothy covered her eyes with her hands, as if she almost saw the little girl falling, down, down to the ravine so far below the path, and was trying to shut out the picture. Nancy, still striving to quiet her fear, heard some one telling what the scribbled note had said. "Oh, Dorothy!" she whispered, eagerly, "Floretta is just where they know how to find her, and they've promised to hurry, and bring her back." "Are you _sure_?" Dorothy asked. "Yes, _sure_!" said Nancy. Then Nancy climbed into the big chair beside her, and the two little girls sat, each tightly clasping the other's hands, while they waited and watched for the first glimpse of the men who should return, bringing Floretta with them. Mrs. Dainty and Aunt Charlotte remained with Mrs. Paxton, who seemed to have lost all control of herself. One moment she would cry as if her heart would break, and then she would spring up, threatening to follow the direction that the men had taken, and try to reach the woods, thus to sooner see her little girl. At last, after what seemed endless waiting, but was actually only an hour, some one espied the men in the distance, and cried out: "They're coming! They're coming!" "Have they got Floretta? Oh, _have_ they found her?" shrieked Mrs. Paxton. "We can't see from here," said the one who had spoken, and the mother rushed forward, shading her eyes with her hand, and straining to catch the first glimpse of her child. She would have rushed down the road to meet them, but Mrs. Dainty held her back. She had seen that they were carrying Floretta, and she thought, in case the child were injured, the mother would far better save her strength.