"This isn't anything compared to the woods and the brook," asserted
Polly.

She put down her lunch-basket and snipped off some clover heads.

"Those are full of honey, Miss Nita,--taste! They aren't buggy a
mite."

Like bees they sipped and sipped, and laughed and said foolish
things like children at a merry-making.

Suddenly Miss Sterling sprang to her feet.

"The day is going," she cried, "and we must get there quick! Come!"

The "just a little way" of Polly's lengthened on and on until the
three who were not accustomed to country fields looked in dismay
toward the long line of trees which seemed so very far off.

"Are you fearfully tired?" Polly would reiterate, and "Not a bit!"
Miss Sterling would lie with complacency, while Mrs. Albright grew
wondrously jolly in her effort to keep everybody from realizing the
truth.

When, finally, they stepped into the dim, cool wood, melodious with
the gurgle and splash of hurrying water and the lilting of unseen
birds, nobody remembered the hot, weary way she had come.

Miss Sterling, stretched upon a bed of vines and moss, announced
that she was in "heaven."