The conversation was broken, for just then Wilmet was seen peering about with an anxious, careful eye.
'What is it, my deputy Partlet?' asked her father. 'Which of your brood are you looking for?'
'I can't see Robina,' said Wilmet anxiously. 'She was swinging just now, but neither she nor Lance is with the big boys.'
'Flown up higher,' said Mr. Underwood, pretending to spy among the branches. 'Flapsy, come down! Bobbie, where are you?'
A voice answered him; and in another moment Robina and Lance stood in the glade, and with them a girl newly come to her teens, whom they pulled forward, crying, 'She says she's our cousin!'
'Indeed,' said Mr. Underwood: 'I am sure you are very much obliged to her.'
'I am Mary Alda Underwood,' said the girl abruptly; 'and I'm sure there must be a very naughty boy here. He had put these poor little things up a tree, and run away.'
'No, no! He only put us up because Tina bothered about it!' screamed Lance and Robina at once; 'he wasn't naughty. We were being monkeys.'
'Black spider-monkeys,' added Robina.
'And I swung about like a real one, Father,' said Lance, 'and was trying to get Bobbie down, only she grew afraid.'