“Suppose that man tried to carry her off?”

“Oh, he wouldn’t dare to try anything like that, Bessie.  I don’t believe the gypsies are half as bad as they are painted, anyhow, but, even if he would be willing to do it, he’d be afraid.  The guides would soon run him out of the preserve if they found him here; no one is supposed to be on it, without permission.  And a gypsy couldn’t get that, I know.”

“But it’s a pretty big place, and there aren’t so very many guides.  We didn’t see one today, and we really took quite a long walk.”

“But, Bessie, what would he do with her if he did carry her off?  Those people travel along the roads, and they travel slowly.  He must know that if anything happened to Dolly, or if she disappeared, he’d be suspected right away, and he’d be chased everywhere he went.”

“I think it would be easy to hide someone in their caravans, though, Miss Eleanor.  And those people stick together, so that no one would betray him if he did anything like that.  We might be perfectly sure that he had done it, but we wouldn’t be able to prove it.”

“I’ll speak to the guides and have them keep a good watch in the direction of Loon Pond, Bessie.  There, will that make you feel any better?  And those gypsies won’t stay over there very long.  They never do.”

“Have they been here before, Miss Eleanor?”

“Oh, yes; every year when I’ve been here.”

“Well, I’ll feel better when they’ve gone, Miss Eleanor.”

“So will I. You’ve made me quite nervous, Bessie.  I think you’d better tell Dolly, and be careful yourself, not to tell the other girls anything about this.  There’s no use in scaring them, and making them feel nervous, too.”

“No.  I thought of that, too.  Some of them would be frightened, I’m sure.  I think Zara would be.  She’s been very nervous, anyhow, ever since we got her away from that awful house where Mr. Holmes had hidden her away from us.”

“I don’t blame her a bit; I would be, too.  It was really a dreadful experience, Bessie, and particularly because she knew it was, in a way, her own fault.”

“You mean because she believed what they said about being her friends, and that she would get you and me into trouble unless she went with them that night when they came for her?”

“Yes.  Poor Zara!  I’m afraid she guessed, somehow, that I had been angry with her, at first.  She’s terribly sensitive, and she seems to be able to guess what’s in your mind when you’ve really scarcely thought the things yourself.”

“Well, I think it will be a good thing if she doesn’t know about this gypsy trouble, Miss Eleanor.  So I’ll go and find Dolly, and tell her not to say anything.”

“Do, Bessie.  And get Dolly to come to me before dinner.  She was wrong to play that trick with the signs, but I don’t mean to scold her.  I want to comfort her, instead.  I think she’s been punished enough already, if she’s really frightened about that gypsy.”