ak down her courage. "Good for you, Ted! I knew you had the sand in
you," was all he ventured to say, as she limped slowly along at his
side.

"I had too much sand under me," she answered, with a giggle which
threatened to become hysterical.

The next mile was apparently endless, and Theodora, as she looked this
way and that with stealthy, fearful glances, felt that the terrors of
the darkness almost swallowed up the pain in her ankle. Underneath the
rest, moreover, was the anxiety in regard to the delay. She knew the
strictness of her father's discipline well enough to fear his
displeasure and alarm, when nine o'clock passed and half-past nine, and
still they did not appear.

Strange to say, the pain in her foot grew less and less unbearable, as
she plodded along the sandy road. The sand was everywhere; it filled her
shoes and made each step drag more heavily. She felt as if they only
crawled along, as if the moments raced by them on wings. In sheer
desperation, she fell to counting the passing seconds, that she might
form some notion of their progress. Hubert was trudging on beside her,
whistling softly to himself. Like a true boy, he was totally oblivious
of every anxiety save for the pain which his sister was suffering, and
she had just assured him that that was better.

"Let's mount, Hu," she said desperately, when it seemed to her that they
had walked for several miles.

"Pretty bad here, Ted. Do you think you can ride?"

"I will," she answered indomitably.

She mounted, rode for a hundred yards, and fell again.

"That slippery sand!" she said petulantly. "What shall we do, Hu? We
must ride, and I can't find the path."

"You're rattled, dear; and I can't ride, myself, any too well. Follow
me."

How patient he was! Even in her anxiety and alarm, Theodora realized all
the kindly care he gave her, all the generosity with which he tried to
prevent her feeling herself a drag upon his freedom. She was quite
unconscious that she had earned his patience by showing the one quality
which boys too rarely find in their girl companions, the lack of which
leads them to take their out-of-door pleasures alone. Theodora rarely
grumbled; in a real emergency, she never complained.

It had seemed to the girl that all fun had died out of the universe,
that the mental outlook was as black as the physical one. Ten minutes
later, the woods echoed with shrieks of laughter,--laughter so
infectious that Hubert laughed in sympa