She walked back again to the woods, intending to return toward the corner, by the road in which she came, but now she could not find the entrance to it.  She wandered for some time, this way and that, along the margin of the wood, but could find no road.  She, however, at length found something which she liked better.  It was a beautiful spring of cool water, bubbling up from between the rocks on the side of a little hill.  She sat down by the side of this spring, took off the cover from her little pail, took out the oranges and laid them down carefully in a little nook where they would not roll away, and then using the pail for a dipper, she dipped up some water, and had an excellent drink.

“What a good spring this is!” said she to herself.  “It is as good as Mary Erskine’s.”

It was the time of the year in which raspberries were ripe, and Mary Bell, in looking around her from her seat near the spring, saw at a distance a place which appeared as if there were raspberry bushes growing there.

“I verily believe that there are some raspberries,” said she.  “I will go and see; if I could only find plenty of raspberries, it would be all that I should want.”

The bushes proved to be raspberry bushes, as Mary had supposed, and she found them loaded with fruit.  She ate of them abundantly, and was very much refreshed.  She would have filled her pail besides, so as to have some to take along with her, but she had no place to put the oranges, except within the pail.

It was now about noon; the sun was hot, and Mary Bell began to be pretty tired.  She wished that they would come for her.  She climbed up upon a large log which lay among the bushes, and called as loud as she could,

“Mary Erskine!  Mary Erskine!”

Then after pausing a moment, and listening in vain for an answer, she renewed her call,

    “Thom—­as!  Thom—­as!”

    Then again, after another pause,

    “Jo—­seph!  Jo—­seph!”

She listened a long time, but heard nothing except the singing of the birds, and the sighing of the wind upon the tops of the trees in the neighboring forests.

She began to feel very anxious and very lonely.  She descended from the log, and walked along till she got out of the bushes.  She came to a place where there were rocks, with smooth surfaces of moss and grass among them.  She found a shady place among these rocks, and sat down upon the moss.  She laid her head down upon her arm and began to weep bitterly.

Presently she raised her head again, and endeavored to compose herself, saying,

“But I must not cry.  I must be patient, and wait till they come.  I am very tired, but I must not go to sleep, for then I shall not hear them when they come.  I will lay my head down, but I will keep my eyes open.”

She laid her head down accordingly upon a mossy mound, and notwithstanding her resolution to keep her eyes open, in ten minutes she was fast asleep.