"I only hope she isn't still up there," said Dan with a laugh, waving
his hand towards the tors. "Poor old Anna!"

"Oh!" squealed Betty, who loved horrors and excitements, "suppose she
is, and sees us going farther and farther away from her. If she called
and called, nobody would hear her, and oh, she'll be so frightened.
If she had to stay there all night, I am sure she would die of fright,"
and Betty looked utterly horrified. "What shall we do? Isn't it
egsciting!"

"No, not at all," said Dan impatiently; "don't be silly. Why should she
be there? I told you all to hurry homewards, and Anna did as she was
told. That is the difference between you and Anna, you see."

"Well," said Betty thoughtfully, "I didn't do as I was told, but I think
I've got the best of it--especially," she added, "if Anna _is_ left
behind."

Dan seemed to take it as a personal insult that she should dwell on such
a possibility. "If you say anything more about Anna being left behind,"
he said, "I'll put you out of the cart and send you back to look for
her."

"Then there would be two of us lost instead of one," said Betty
aggravatingly, "and oh, wouldn't you get into a row when you got home!"

"She must be on ahead," said Kitty, anxious to make peace.
"Only I didn't think she had had time to get so far."

"Perhaps some one has given her a lift," said Dan, with sudden hope.
"Anna is sharp enough to take or to ask for one if she had the chance.
She knows it is a tight pack for us all to get in this cart at once, and
she would think Mokus would behave as badly going home as he did on the
way out."

This all seemed to them so likely, that they drove on again gaily, their
minds quite easy about her; all except Betty, who persisted in gazing
back at the tors as long as they were in view, in the hope of seeing a
signal of distress. Mokus stepped out at a pace that the carrots had
never roused him to on the outward journey, yet darkness had come on
before they reached Gorlay.

"Isn't it like old times," sighed Betty happily, "driving through the
dark and the wet, and then reaching home, and changing and having a
jolly tea by the fire, and there will be no Aunt Pike, and we will be
able to stay up as late as we like--"

"But there will be Anna," said Tony. "It won't be _quite_ the same."

But, alas, there was no Anna, and her absence on this particular
occasion did much more to upset their evening than her presence would
have don