en
consulted with the girl at the door of the cabin, and the strange
father, rubbing his hands and smiling absently, remarked with an accent
that was very different from Mr. Lupo's or any of the natives
thereabouts:

"Not half bad, this fire, eh? Rather cheerful on a dull night."

Presently his daughter began preparing supper on a little wood stove in
the lean-to back of the house. Swiftly and silently, with Ben's
assistance, she made coffee, scrambled eggs and fried bacon.

"You may set the table," she said to Percy, pointing to some shelves at
one end of the cabin.

Percy obediently placed on the plain deal table six blue plates, nicked
and cracked in a dozen places, but undoubtedly of Canton; also in a tin
box he found knives and forks and spoons, all shining as brightly as the
candlesticks, and, he felt perfectly certain, all of silver. It was
necessary to revive Mary with some hot coffee before she could eat a
mouthful, and after she had taken a little food, Ben hoisted her in his
arms and carried her into a small adjoining room where he laid her on a
cot; all this under the supervision of the young mistress of the cabin.

There was no attempt at conversation while they satisfied their ravenous
appetites, but later, when the wanderers had risen and Billie was
consulting with Ben and Percy what was best to do, the father pointed to
Nancy sitting in the darkest corner of the room in a small huddled heap.

"Rosalind has come out of the Forest of Arden," he said.

All eyes were turned on Nancy who shrank into the shadow. Suddenly
Percy seized one of the tall candlesticks and held it over her head.

"Why, Nancy-Bell," he cried, "what has happened to your----"

Nancy spread her hands over her lap and turned her large blue eyes to
them with a piteous expression.

"I took it off and threw it away in the swamp," she said tremulously. "I
did hate the thing so, and it was full of hornets and not big enough to
take a decent step in anyhow. I hoped no one would notice."

They were tired, but not too tired to laugh.

"If I had been dying, I should have died laughing," Billie often
afterwards remarked in telling of this incident.

Nancy, minus her narrow velveteen skirt, was really a beguiling figure
in blue pongee knickerbockers. The straight velveteen jacket reached
just below her waist, and with her rumpled curls and weary expression
she might easily have been taken for Rosalind, just arrived at the
Forest of Ar