"Tina, if you look like that I'll kiss you, and Walter will call me out!" he said lightly. "Of course I'm not angry--we're as chummy as you'll let me be. Come on and find the choo-choo car!" He slipped his arm through the basket handle and made for his coat. The children scrambled off it apologetically; they were not quite certain where they stood in the present crisis. But he smiled at them reassuringly. "We'll have to meet again," he called, already beyond them, "and have some more of those little cakes! Good-by till next time!" "Good-by! Good-by!" they called, and Miss Honey, eyeing the pink parasol longingly, ventured, "Good-by, Miss Tina!" The lady did not answer, but walked slowly after the young man, shaking out her billowy skirts. Soon he was behind the big boulder; soon she had followed him. "Yady go!" the General announced. "They had a quarrel, didn't they?" Miss Honey queried. "But they made up, so it was all right." Caroline shook her head wisely. "We--ell," she mused, "they made it up, but I don't believe he changed his mind, just the same." Something puffed loudly in the road, whirred down to a steady growl, and grew fainter and fainter. "There they go!" Brother cried. He picked up a bit of bark and tossed it into the little pool. "I bet you Ridge will be glad to get back to the Place," he said. VII THE PRETENDERS Midsummer dust lay ankle-deep in the road, white and hot. The asphalt sidewalk baked in the noon sun, the leaves hung motionless from the full trees; only the breathless nasturtiums flickered like flames along the fences, for the other flowers wilted in the glare. Caroline, hatless and happy as a lizard in the relentless heat, spun along on her bicycle, the only bit of movement on all the long stretch of the road. The householders had all retired behind their green blinds; even New England yielded to August's imperious _siesta_, and it might have been a deserted village, empty and mysterious, through which she glided. By little and little she grew to feel this; her feet moved more and more slowly on the pedals, her brows knitted as the great idea grew. Her lips moved, inaudibly at first, but soon began the sing-song murmur so well known to those who crept upon her unawares. "I am all alone; the rest have gone--where have they gone!--where _could_ they go? Oh, they're dead. Murdered! No, the town was besieged, and we made ropes with our hair, and bowstrings.... And they all marched out, and they closed the city gates...." Slower and slower the pedals moved: Caroline was pushing uphill. "So then the Mayor said: 'No, this sacrifice is too great--I can not allow you to make it, my brave children. Death--and worse--await you beyond these walls. Let us die here together.'" Her chin quivered. At the summit of the hill she paused.