CHAPTER VII
FLORETTA'S RETURN
AT a far corner of the piazza sat Dorothy, her eyes terrified, and her cheeks pale. Nancy, close beside her, wound her arms about her, and sought, in every way, to comfort her.
"They'll find her soon, Dorothy, so don't you be frightened," she whispered. "They'll surely find her soon."
Dear little Nancy knew, better than any of Dorothy's other friends could have known, how ready was her sympathy, how kind and loving was her heart.
She had not loved Floretta, but with Dorothy, that did not count. It was the dreadful fear that something had happened to a little girl, who, so recently had been at play with them,—ah, that was what grieved sweet Dorothy.
She was thinking of what Mrs. Dainty had said to Aunt Charlotte when the mountain trip was first talked of.
"I think the long tramp is a rougher form of amusement than I can well endure. I should be so weary long before it was time to return, that I should derive but little pleasure from the trip. There is another thought in connection with the picnic," she continued, "and that is an element of danger. Not great danger perhaps, but such that I would not join the party, nor would I permit Dorothy, or Nancy to do so. One gentleman who was talking of the mountain path that they have chosen, spoke of the great danger to the climbers from small, rolling stones, and from places where the earth seems to crumble near the edge of the narrow foot-path. A careless step might lead to a fall that would mean, I hardly dare to say what!"
Dorothy and Nancy had been wishing to join the party, but upon hearing this, they lost all interest in it, and had cheerfully taken the drive behind gentle Romeo, instead. Now, as Dorothy sat with Nancy's arms about her, she was glad that they had not been permitted to go, and she heartily wished that Floretta had remained at the Cleverton.
"Had she rolled from the path, and fallen, fallen,—"