Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/94

 stumbled into tangles of wild blackberry vines, but was not at all sure that she was making any real progress.

The round wooded hills and squares of well-kept field and meadow all looked much alike to her. A big house among the trees, showing tall stacks of brick chimneys and a tiled roof was, moreover, so completely unfamiliar that she became still more perplexed. The afternoon was coming to an end, she grew wearier and wearier and the box in her arms seemed continually heavier and more awkward. At last she stood still, having completely lost her bearings.

"Oh, Dick," she said forlornly, "can't you show me the way home?"

Dick, however, quite unabashed by the trouble he had caused, flew from her shoulder and began gravely hopping about the grass at the side of the way. Betsey looked about her desperately and saw a half-plowed field at some distance, bordered by a hedge.

"There may be some one at work there," she thought, "and I can ask the way."

But it seemed far indeed to drag her heavy feet up the hill, through a spur of woodland and along a rough lane between two hedges. She could hear the soft trampling of a horse's hoofs on the loose earth and a cheerful whistling that told her that