"I hope it isn't too cross," murmured Grace, with a grave face.

"Huh?"

The boy looked at her wonderingly.

"I mean not cross enough to bite," she went on.

"You turn to the left," the boy continued, "and keep straight on till you
get to Watson's Corners. Then you turn to the right, keep on past an old
stone church, turn to the right and that's a straight road to Rockford."
He looked curiously at Grace, as though in doubt as to her sanity. "A
cross road!" he murmured.

"Gracious, we'll never remember all that!" exclaimed Amy.

"I have it down!" said practical Betty, as she wrote rapidly in her note
book. "I'm sure we can find it. Come on, girls!"

"Have another candy," invited Grace, hospitably extending the now nearly
depleted box.

"Sure--thanks!" exclaimed the boy, but he backed quickly away from her.
Her joke had fallen on a suspicious mind, evidently.

The girls trudged on, rather silent now, for somehow the edge of their
enjoyment seemed to have been taken off. But still they were not
discouraged. They were true outdoor girls, and they knew, even if worse
came to worst, and darkness found them far from their destination, and
Betty's aunt's house, that no real harm could come to them.