go, until he reached the end of it,
and disappeared.

"Poor Bobbin," said Mary Bell, "I am sorry that I frightened you
away."

A few steps farther on in her walk, Mary Bell came to a place where
a great number of yellow butterflies had settled down together in the
path. Most of them were still, but a few were fluttering about, to
find good places.

"Oh, what pretty butterflies!" said Mary Bell. "They have been flying
about, I suppose, till they have got tired, and have stopped to rest.
But if I were a butterfly, I would rest upon flowers, and not upon the
ground."

Mary Bell paused and looked upon the butterflies a moment, and then
said,

"And now how shall I get by? I am sure I don't want to tread upon
those butterflies. I will sit down here, myself, on a stone, and wait
till they get rested and fly away. Besides, I am tired myself, and
_I_ shall get rested too."

Just as she took her seat she saw that there was a little path, which
diverged here from the main road, and turned into the woods a little
way, seeming to come back again after a short distance. There were
many such little paths, here and there, running parallel to the main
road. They were made by the cows, in the spring of the year when the
roads were wet, to avoid the swampy places. These places were now all
dry, and the bye-paths were consequently of no use, though traces of
them remained.

"No," said Mary Bell. "I will not stop to rest; I am not very tired;
so I will go around by this little path. It will come into the road
again very soon."

Mary Bell's opinion would have been just, in respect to any other path
but this one; but it so happened, very unfortunately for her, that
now, although not aware of it, she was in fact very near the great
pine-tree, where the road into the woods branched off, and the path
which she was determining to take, though it commenced in the main
road leading to Mary Erskine's, did not return to it again, but after
passing, by a circuitous and devious course, through the bushes a
little way, ended in the branch road which led into the woods, at a
short distance beyond the pine-tree.

Mary Bell was not aware of this state of things, but supposed, without
doubt, that the path would come out again into the same road that
it left, and that, she could pass round through it, and so avoid
disturbing the butterflies. She thought, indeed, it might possibly be
that the path would not come back at all, but would lose itse