Well was it for the small boy that, as the carriage rattled on, he took good care to be out of the reach of Tom's whip-lash.
It grew darker and colder, and the red moon rode on silently in the sky. They had come now to the opening of the cross-road, but there were no signs of the children—only the still road and the shadows under the trees.
"Hark! what's that?" said Mr. Breynton, suddenly. He stopped the carriage, and they all listened. A faint, sobbing sound broke the silence. Gypsy leaned over the side of the carriage, peering in among the trees where the shadow was blackest.
"Father, may I get out a minute?"
She sprang over the wheel, ran into the cross-road, into a clump of bushes, pushed them aside, screamed for joy.
"Here they are, here they are—quick, quick! Oh, Winnie Breynton, do just wake up and let me look at you! Oh, Joy, I am so glad!"
And there on the ground, true enough, sat Joy, exhausted and frightened and sobbing, with Winnie sound asleep in her lap.
"I didn't know the way, and Winnie kept telling me wrong, and, oh, I was so tired, and I sat down to rest, and it is so dark, and—and oh, I thought nobody'd ever come!"
And poor Joy sprang into her uncle's arms, and cried as hard as she could cry.
Joy was thoroughly tired and chilled; it seemed that she had had to carry Winnie in her arms a large part of the way, and the child was by no means a light weight. Evidently, Master Winnie had taken matters pretty comfortably throughout, having had, Joy said, the utmost confidence in his own piloting, declaring "it was just the next house, right around the corner, Joy; how stupid in her not to know! he knew all the whole of it just as well as anything," and was none the worse for the adventure. Gypsy tried to wake him up, but he doubled up both fists in his dream, and greeted her with the characteristic reply, "Naughty!" and that was all that was to be had from him. So he was rolled up warmly on the carriage floor; they drove home as fast as Billy would go, and the two children, after a hot supper and a great many kisses, were put snugly to bed.