floor.

"Well, well, wifey, you're right enough, no doubt; but I tell you it
isn't best to be too easy with youngsters, though ours are the best
going, if I _do_ say it. A good trouncing all around, when they come in,
wouldn't be a bit too much for them for being so late;" and, half in
fun, half in earnest, he shook his head rather fiercely at his wife, and
stalked out of the cottage.

Presently she laughed outright to hear the loud, impatient tones issuing
from the great tin horn. "That'll fetch them, I reckon," said neighbor
Hedden, showing a smiling face at the window.

As another hour passed away, the songs grew fewer and fainter upon the
mother's lips--at first from vexation, and, finally, from weariness and
a vague feeling of anxiety.

"Bessie should know better," she thought to herself, "than to stay so
long. I wish I had not let Kitty go with them."

The next moment she smiled to think how hungry the children would be
when they returned, and half wished that it would not be "spoiling" them
to make them a good sugar-cake for their supper.

Not until the shadows grew longer upon the edge of the forest, and
threatening clouds grew thicker overhead, did her heart quail or her
cheek grow white with sudden fear.

"Oh! what _can_ keep them, I wonder! Why didn't I ask John to go look
for them?" she asked herself over and over again. But Mrs. Hedden was