"So are we," she replied. "A lark in the woods wouldn't be half the fun
with our forester missing."

"Back to nature for me, every time," he exclaimed, taking a deep breath
and looking about him, his face aglow with forest worship.

"I love the woods, too," said Grace, "almost enough to wish I were a
gypsy."

On down the shady wood road they traveled, sometimes stopping to watch a
squirrel or a chipmunk or to knock down a few burrs from the chestnut
trees they occasionally found along the way. Once they stopped and
played hide and seek for half an hour. By one o'clock they were
ravenously hungry. Hippy clamored incessantly for food.

"Let us feed him at once, and have peace," exclaimed Nora. "I'm hungry,
too. It seems an age since breakfast."

A halt was made and the contents of two of the lunch packages were
arranged on a little tablecloth at the foot of a great oak. The hungry
young folks gathered around it and in a short time nothing remained of
the lunch excepting the packages reserved for supper.

"I move we all take a half hour's rest and then go on," said David. "We
still have a mile to go before we are through the wood. We'll feel more
like walking after we've rested a little."

"Let us all sit in a row with our backs against this fallen tree and
tell a story," said Grace. "Hippy, you are on the end, so you can begin