y hired the boat, and thought perhaps the
sails went with it. Of course they take up too much room in the cabin.
You can't mean that you are going on a longer voyage?"

"_Tents!_" shouted Betty, jumping up and dancing about in great
excitement. "_Tents!_ don't you see, Aunt Barbara? and we're going to
camp out." It was a very anxious moment, for if Aunt Barbara said, "We
must go home to-night," there would be nothing to do but obey.

"But your Aunt Mary will be worried, won't she?" asked Miss Leicester,
whose quick wit suspected a deep-laid plot. She was already filled with
a spirit of adventure; she really looked pleased, but was not without a
sense of responsibility.

"I thought you would like it," explained Mr. Leicester, in a
matter-of-fact way; "and there was no need of telling you beforehand, so
that you would make your will and pay your taxes and get in all the
winter supplies and have the minister to tea before you started. Aunt
Mary knows, and so does Serena; you will see that Serena contemplated
the situation by the way she filled these big baskets."

"I saw that they were amused with something that I didn't quite
understand. And Mary Beck's mother will not feel anxious?" she asked,
for a final assurance. "I never expected to turn myself into a wild
Indian at my age, even to please foolish children like you and Betty,
but I have always wished that I could sleep one night under the pine
woods."

"You said so when we were reading Mr. Stevenson's 'Travels with a
Donkey' aloud to Aunt Mary," Betty stated eagerly, as if the others
would find it hard to believe her grandaunt. Somehow, a stranger would
have found it difficult to believe that Miss Leicester had unsatisfied
desires about gypsying.

Mary Beck was deeply astonished; she had a huge admiration for her
dignified neighbor across the way, and yet it was always a little
perilous to her ease of mind and self-possession to find herself in Miss
Leicester's company. Many a time, in the days before Betty came to
Tideshead, she had walked to and fro before the old house hoping to be
spoken to or called in for a visit, and yet was too shy to properly
answer a kind good-morning when they met. Aunt Barbara used to think
that Becky was a dull girl, but they were already better friends. It
took a long time to rouse Becky's enthusiasm, but when roused it burned
with steady flame. To think that she should be camping out with Miss
Leicester!

But Mr. Leicester and