join your friend at
Miss Warden's.'"

"What do you think about it, auntie? Of course it is a great
disappointment to me not to go with you; but do I not owe it to the
Stanfords to go to them when I may be of use during Ada's
convalescence?"

Miss Drechsler looked, as she felt, disappointed, she had anticipated so
much pleasure in having Frida with her in London; but after a few
minutes' thought she said, "You are right, Frida: you must, I fear, go
first to the Stanfords. We cannot forget all that they have done for
you, and as they seem to be so anxious for you to go there, I think you
must yield to their wishes; but I must go at once to Miss Warden, who is
expecting me. You had better write at once and tell them we hope to be
at Dover in four days. They live, as you know, not so far from there. I
think that the train will take you to the station, not above a couple of
miles from Stanford Hall, where I doubt not they will meet you; but I
must write at once and let Miss Warden know that you cannot accompany
me, and the reason why, though I hope that erelong, if convenient to
her, you may join me there. Ah, Frida! 'man's heart deviseth his way:
but God directeth his steps.'"

And so it came to pass that Miss Drechsler arrived alone at Miss
Warden's, whilst Frida went to Stanford Hall.

When it became known in the Forest that the woodland child, as they
still called her, was again about to leave them for some undefined time,
there was great lamentation.

"How then are we to get on without you?" they said. "_Ach!_ shall we
have to do without the reading of the book again? True, Hans Hoerstel
reads it well enough; but what of that? He too has left us. _Ach!_ it is
plain no one cares for the poor wood-cutters and charcoal-burners who
live in the Forest, and some grand English gentleman will be getting our
woodland child for a wife, and she will return to us no more."

But Frida only laughed at these lamentations. "Why, what nonsense you
speak!" she said. "It is only for a little while that I am going away. I
hope to come back in about three months. And many of you can now read
the Bible for yourselves. And as to the grand gentleman, that is all
fancy; I want no grand gentleman for a husband. The only thing that
would detain me in England would be if any of my relations were to find
me out and claim me; but if that were to be the case, I am sure none of
my friends in the Forest would grudge their child to her own peopl