“Wanted the tea-set themselves—­did they?”

“O, no; they never play tea.  That isn’t why they feel dreadfully; it’s because, if they ever frighten me again, the Mayor’ll have them put in the penitential, and they know it.”

“They were mean fellows; that’s a fact,” said Horace, with genuine indignation.  “I used to be full of mischief when I was small; but I never frightened a little girl in my life; and no boy would do it that thinks anything of himself.”

Dotty looked up admiringly at the youth of twelve years, liking him all the better for his chivalry, as any of you little girls would have done.

“Boy-cousins are not always alike,” said she, as if the idea was quite new; “some are good, and some are naugh—­”

The word was cut in two by a scream.  A large and very handsome snake was gliding gracefully across her path.  The like of it for size and brilliancy, she had never seen before.

“O, how boo-ful!” cried Katie, darting after it.  Horace held her back.  Dotty trembled violently.

“Kill it,” she screamed; “throw stones at it; take me away! take me away!”

“Poh, Dotty; nothing but an innocent snake; he’s more afraid of you than you are of him.”

“You told him take you away two times,” exclaimed Katie, “and he didn’t, and he didn’t.”

“I never knew you had such awful things out West,” said Dotty shuddering.  “And I don’t think now there’s any difference in boy-cousins!  They never take you away, nor do anything you ask ’em to—­so there!”

“Why, Dotty, he was hurrying as fast as he could to get out of our sight; there was no need of taking you away.”

“She needn’t be ’fraid,” observed Flyaway, soothingly; “if I had a sidders, I could ha’ cutted him in two.”

By this time the rest of the party had arrived.  Grace and Cassy walked together very confidentially under the same umbrella which had sheltered them years ago—­a black one marked with white paint, “Stolen from H.S.  Clifford.”  “Bold thieves” Horace called them; but they deigned no notice of his remark.

“I’ll get an answer,” murmured Horace, repeating aloud,—­

     “’Hey for the apple and ho for the pear,
     But give me the girl with the red hair.’”

At this Grace turned around sharply, and shook her bare head, which gleamed in the sun like burnt gold.

“Panoria Swan has red hair,” said she,—­“fire-red; but mine is auburn.”

“O, I only wanted to make you speak, Grace; that will do.”

“Here we are at the woods,” said Mr. Clifford.  He had once owned a neighboring lot, and his pecan trees had been fenced around to protect them from the impertinent swine; but now the party were going into the heart of the forest.

The pecan trees were tall, somewhat like maples, with the nuts growing on them in shucks, after the manner of walnuts.  These shucks, if left till the coming of frost, would have opened of themselves, and scattered the nuts to the ground; but our friends preferred to gather a few bushels before they were perfectly ripened, rather than lose them altogether.