But nothing came of it. Fidelia amused herself gathering some late flowers, and in searching about for other wild wood treasures, and then she sang again, and listened for an answering voice; but she listened in vain. "I expect we _are_ lost for the time being," said Mrs Stone composedly. "We'd as well make the best of it, and see what we can do to pass the time. I wish I had brought my knitting. They'll miss us pretty soon, and come to find us." "Tell me about the last time you were on the mountain," said Fidelia. "To pass the time? Well, that may do as well as anything. But it isn't much of a story, and what is of it is not very pleasant to tell or to hear." The telling of that story involved the telling of much more; but there was time enough, before an answer came to Fidelia's next song, for all Mrs Stone had to tell. CHAPTER EIGHT. MRS STONE. Mrs Stone did not tell her story straight on as she sat waiting there on the mountain side, but with many a break and pause, and with now and then an exclamation of wonder or indignation at her own foolishness, or the foolishness of some one else. But she told it quietly--making no moan for herself, though the troubles of her life had been neither light nor few. "Yes, I have had a share of trouble, but no more than my share; and, take it altogether, I have had considerable enjoyment, too. There was Eunice--I could never tell the comfort I took with her when she was a little child. I was only a child myself--little more than twelve or thirteen years old--when my sister Myra let me go to take care of Eunice for a spell, when she came home, a motherless baby, to live with her grandmother Peabody on the hill. Her grandmother was a busy woman in those days, with many duties at home and elsewhere; and Eunice was a healthy, happy little creature; and after awhile she was mostly left to me night and day for years; and I did my very best for her, and we were very happy together till your father married again and took her home. "I ought by rights to have gone with her, as they all wanted to have me; but sister Myra was married by this time, and lived on father's old place, and she wanted me to come and make my home with her, as I had a good right to do, seeing the farm was as much mine as hers, by our father's will. So I tried it a spell. She had two babies by this time, and I was good with babies, and could have helped her, and been contented after awhile.