s they approached.

"He thinks we have stayed too long," said Winifred laughingly. "What
time do you suppose it is, Ruth?"

"Oh! we can't have been away from home more than an hour," said Ruth;
"but the sky looks cloudy, doesn't it?"

But it was not clouds that made the sky darken, it was the rapidly
approaching twilight. The tall trees shut out the golden spring
sunshine; and the afternoon had passed so pleasantly that neither Ruth
nor Winifred had any idea that evening was close at hand, or that they
were miles from home in a solitary and unknown road that had seemed to
grow more narrow as they went on.

"Perhaps we had better turn around now," suggested Winifred a few
moments after they had gathered the wild honeysuckle. "I told Mother we
would be home early. Why, what is the matter with Fluff?" she added in a
startled tone, for the little pony had come to a full stop.

Both the little girls jumped out of the cart and ran to the pony's head,
which drooped low. Fluff was breathing heavily, and it seemed to
Winifred as if his slender legs trembled.

"Why, he can't be tired. He had that long rest just now," said Ruth
anxiously. Neither of them realized that ever since leaving the river
the road had run steadily up-hill, or that the pony had been traveling
for a number of hours. Fluff was no longer young, and he had never been
required to go long distances; and now he could go no further.

"I'll take off his harness," said Winifred quickly. "I hope he isn't
going to have a fit. Ned Farris's pony has fits." It did not take her
long to set Fluff free from the pony-cart, and he turned a grateful look
toward his little mistress, who began to wish there was a brook or
spring near at hand where the little creature could drink.

Ruth smoothed Fluff's head, and Winifred with a bunch of wayside grass
rubbed his back and legs.

"He's going to lie down," said Winifred as Fluff moved his head about
quickly; and in a moment the tired little creature had stretched himself
at their feet.

"What shall we do? I am sure Fluff can't take us home," exclaimed
Winifred, "and we can't go and leave him here."

"It can't be very far from home," responded Ruth. "I could go home and
tell Gilbert, and he would come right back for you with Ned's pony."

"But what could we do with Fluff?" asked Winifred a little despondently.
"He is too tired to drive home."

"Perhaps he'd be rested enough by that time to go home, if he didn't
have to