at bridge you go over,
so that you will know it again, and then if you get lost on the other
side it will be no matter. All you will have to do is to keep coming
down hill till you reach the river, and then look up and down till you
see the bridge where you went over. That will bring you home. And be
sure to be at home by five o'clock. We are going to have dinner at half
past five."

"Then won't it be in season," asked Rollo, "if I am at home by half past
five?"

"In season for what?" asked his father.

"Why, to save my dinner," said Rollo.

"Yes," said his father; "it might be in season to save your dinner, but
that is not what I am planning to save. I have no particular uneasiness
about your dinner."

"Why, father!" said Rollo, surprised.

"I have no wish to have you go hungry," replied his father; "but then if
by any chance you happened to be late at dinner, it would be of no great
consequence, for you could buy something, and eat it in the diligence by
the way. So I was not planning to save your dinner."

"Then what were you planning to save, father?" asked Rollo.

"My own and mother's quiet of mind," replied Mr. Holiday, "especially
mother's. If five minutes of the dinner hour were to come and you
should not appear, she would begin to be uneasy; and indeed so should
I. In such cases as this, children ought always to come before the time
when their parents would begin to feel any uneasiness respecting them."

Rollo saw at once the correctness of this principle, and he secretly
resolved that he would be at home a quarter before five.

CHAPTER II.

PLANNING.

"What part of the diligence are we going to ride in, father?" asked
Rollo, as they were seated at dinner.

"In the coupe,"[A] said Mr. Holiday.

[Footnote A: Pronounced _coupay_.]

"Ah, father!" said Rollo; "I wish you would go on the banquette. We can
see so much better on the banquette."

"It would be rather hard climbing for mother," said Mr. Holiday, "to get
up to the banquette--such a long ladder."

"O, mother can get up just as easily as not," said Rollo. "Couldn't you,
mother?"

"I am more afraid about getting _down_ than getting up," said his
mother.

"But it is a great deal pleasanter on the banquette," said Rollo. "They
keep talking all the time--the conductor, and the drivers, and the other
passengers that are there; while in the coupe we shall be all by
ourselves. Besides, it is so much cheaper."

"It is cheaper, I