onounced as it
is spelled instead of 'ree'--she looks red enough in that blazing
outfit."

"But what a pretty accent the girl used," remarked Grace. "Do you
suppose she's English?"

"Maybe from Boston," suggested Cleo, "but the old woman, I should
judge, is a native of the whole geography, well beaten with an oceanic
egg beater, or if not that conglomeration, I should guess she owned an
entire island in the wildest ocean, where there were nothing but
ship-wrecked rummage sails and old crow squaks."

"That's bad enough, anyway," commented Madaline, who seemed a trifle
out of the picture, "and I think she is all of that and more."

"Just you watch the True-Treds make for the twin chestnuts!" orated
Cleo. "Old Lady Reda had better look out for her lace sun bonnet and
flowered petticoat. They may get mixed up in the shuffle."

"How about grandpop?" asked Grace. "What do you propose to do with
him?"

"Smother him in his 'yarbs' and roots," pronounced Cleo dramatically,
and when they entered the path to Cragsnook, busy brains were
concocting marvelously daring schemes to bring about the rescue of Maid
Mary.

"Do you think your Aunt Audrey will mind?" questioned Madaline, always
sure to find an alibi for anything too risky.

"No, indeed," stoutly declared Cleo. "I shouldn't wonder but she would
want to adopt Maid Mary for a model, with those Marguerite braids, and
her far-away eyes. Oh, isn't it too exciting? Do you think we need
tell Jennie?"

"I--wouldn't," replied Grace, fully conscious such a risk was not to be
even thought of.

Madaline was a nice little fat dimply girl, and no one could blame her
for not wanting to run from horrid old women up on mountain tops,
nevertheless she had never failed in her own peculiar way of performing
scout duties, and even the braver girls loved her baby ways of
accomplishing the tasks.

CHAPTER VII

WITHIN A MOUNTAIN CAVE

Mrs. Dunbar was busy in New York, taking an active part in an art
convention, nevertheless she made a flying trip out to Cragsnook that
afternoon, to make sure her young guests were happy and well. Being
real girls and therefore pardonably human, in telling their adventure,
the scouts did not enlarge on their meeting with Maid Mary; in fact the
detail involving the displeasure of Reda, the old nurse, was quite
lightly passed over in their account of the day as made to the hostess.

Mrs. Dunbar enjoyed the joke perpetrated by Madaline, i