“Anybody hurt?” asked Roger, going to pick them up.

“Oh no!” said Bell, sitting up and shaking the pine needles from her hair.  “Toots was underneath, and she makes a noble cushion.  All right, Toots? and how do you come here, Professor?” The three fallen ones righted themselves, and sat up and panted; seeing which, the others came and sat down, too, and for a space no one spoke, for no one had any breath save Roger, and he was laughing.

“I have been botanizing,” he said at last.  “I was coming quietly along, when suddenly Bedlam broke loose, and I have been standing by to go about ever since.  No extra lunatics seemed to be needed, or I should have been charmed to assist.”

By this time Hildegarde had recovered her composure.  It was her fate, she reflected, to run into people, and be found in trees, and be caught playing “Sally Waters;” she could not help her fate.  But her hair was all down her back, and she could help that.  She began to knot it up quietly, but Gerald raised a cry of protest.

“What, oh what is she doing that for?  Don’t, Miss Hildegarde, please!  I was just thinking how jolly it looked, let alone the chances for scalping.”

“Thank you!” said Hildegarde, as she wound up the long locks and fastened them securely.  “I have no fancy for playing Absalom all the way home.  Have you hurt your foot, Phil?” for Phil was rubbing his ankle vigorously, and looking rather uncomfortable.

“I stumbled over Dropsy’s nose,” he said, ruefully.  “When she fell down, her nose reached all the way round the tree, and tripped me up.  I wish you would keep your nose in curl-papers, Dropsy.”

Dropsy beat him affectionately, and helped rub his ankle.  They were silent for a moment, being too comfortable to speak, each one thought to himself.  The sunbeams flickered through the leaves; the pine needles, tossed into heaps by the hurrying feet, gave out their delicious fragrance; overhead the wind murmured low in the branches.  It was a perfect time, and even Gerald felt the charm and was silent, throwing acorns at his sisters.

“Sing, Roger,” said Bell, at length, softly.  “Sing ‘Robin Hood!’”

So Roger sang, in a noble baritone voice, that joyous song of the forest, and the woods rang to the chorus: 

    “So, though bold Robin’s gone,
     Yet his heart lives on,
     And we drink to him with three times three.”

CHAPTER VIII.

“Hands across the sea.”

“Oh, how jolly you all look!” cried Hildegarde, peeping through the hedge.  “Where are you going?”

The Merryweathers were going to ride; so much was evident.  Five bicycles stood at the door, glittering in the sunlight; five riders were in the act of mounting, plainly bound on a pleasure-trip.

“Only for the mail, and a little spin after it,” cried Mr. Merryweather.  “Wish you could come too, Miss Grahame.  You will certainly have to get a wheel and join us.  Nothing like it, I assure you.”