Page:Mistress Madcap (1937).pdf/80

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articles—Charity's squirrel muff, the foot warmer, even the lunch all nicely wrapped in one of the best napkins. But at last they were off, with the girls waving to their mother until they were out of sight around the bend in the road.

Over the First Mountain they went and across Pleasant Valley to the beautiful brookside road that wound beneath the lee of the Second Mountain. Then through the little village of Millbum and south to the Morristown road, where they were to meet the stagecoach and continue the rest of their journey in that.

The girls' hearts thumped when, sitting in the cart, waiting, far off in the distance they descried the great lumbering coach with its four galloping horses.

"Quick, Father!" cried Mehitable, beginning to scramble down from her seat and reaching for her many bundles.

"Nay, Hitty, do not hurry, lass! There's time a-plenty!" And the Squire laughed at this extremely inexperienced traveler. "The stage will wait! Besides, 'tis yet some distance away!"

He turned to lift the rugged little cowhide trunk, the very same which had come over from England with his mother's clothes in it so many years ago, when his eyes rested upon an unexpected sight. It was an Indian watching from behmd a tree! But the Squire went quietly on with his task of carrying the trunk over to the side of the road, and when he stole another look, the savage had vanished.

And now the stagecoach was near. The two little Colonial maids grew pale as the enormous thing, drawn