At this Mr. Marston whipped up his horses, which were showing some fear
of the twinkling lanterns, and halted when opposite to the party of
searchers.

"My gracious! is she lost?" asked the good man, forgetting the anguish
of his friends in his own curiosity.

"Yes, she started up this road this afternoon toward Dunbarton to meet
her brother, who was returning, but, somehow or other, missed him, and
we are all anxious about her."

"My gracious alive! I should think you would be: it would drive my wife
and me crazy if our Lizzie should be lost in the woods."

"I suppose, from the way you talk," continued the teacher, "that you
have seen nothing of her?"

"No, I wish I had, for I tell you these woods are a bad place for a
little girl to get lost in. Last March, when we had an inch of snow on
the ground, I seen tracks that I knowed was made by a bear, and a mighty
big one, too, and--"

But just then a half-smothered moan from the mother warned the
thoughtless neighbor that he was giving anything but comfort to the
afflicted parents.

"I beg pardon," he hastened to say, in an awkward attempt to apologize;
"come to think, I am sure that it wasn't a bear, but some big dog; you
know a large dog makes tracks which can be mistook very easy for those