Barbara in Brittany Part 22

"Well, Donald?"

But her brother addressed himself to Denys--

"Considering you've been here a good time now," he said, "you haven't seen much of the country really. Suppose you came for a long walk on the moor to-morrow with Frances and me--and Barbara?"

Denys' eyes lighted up. "If Barbara will, I shall be charmed," he said.

"I think she'll come," Donald said cheerfully; and moved by some persuasion or force Barbara consented, and the four started off across the moors.

They started together--that was certain--but did not return in the same manner, for Donald and Frances had got most thoroughly lost, although as Donald said, with a grin, "he had walked that moor, man and boy, for the past six years."

But when the two truants returned they did not seem at all cast down by their misfortune, while Denys certainly came back in a more cheerful mood than that in which he had set out.

"I think you'll find things all right when you come back again," Donald whispered on the morning the visitors were to go, and Denys, nodding, gripped his hand so tightly that the boy winced.

"I think," said Frances, as she watched the carriage disappearing--"I think, Donald, Aunt Anne ought to be very thankful she was so generous.

She has been rewarded, hasn't she, in finding Uncle Morton?"

"Yes, virtue has had its reward. But you know, Frances, I think we're being rather generous too."

"Yes?" Frances said interrogatively.

"Well, the end will be that we lose Barbara, and we haven't raised a finger to prevent it--on the contrary we've helped--and you know we're never likely to find another sister like her."

"No, of course not. But all the same a wedding--and I suppose there'll be two--will make a grand finale like the 'Codas' you have in marches."

"Yes. You're really rather poetical, Frances. And perhaps by the time you're ready for France another aunt will turn up to take you there."

"I hope so, though they can't always expect to find Uncle Mortons as a reward. But there's time enough to think of that; and at any rate, Don, I'm going to be bride's-maid at the wedding."

"Yes," said Donald. "And there'll be two wedding cakes running, Fran--think of that!"