"Guess I'll wait, too." Miss Sterling dropped wearily to the grass.
Mrs. Adlerfeld, Miss Lily, Mrs. Albright, and Miss Castlevaine lined themselves beside her.
"I don't know what possessed me to come on such a long walk!" fretted Miss Castlevaine.
"Why, I never thought that anybody could be tired!" said Polly contritely. "Why didn't you speak sooner?"
"Oh, we'll be all right by the time you get back!" laughed Mrs. Albright. "Now run along, every one of you! Shoo! Shoo!" She waved her skirts toward them.
It took a good deal of urging, however, to induce Polly to leave Miss Sterling. Finally she ran off with David, calling back that she wouldn't be gone long.
The afternoon slipped away, and the air grew cooler. The exhausted ones gathered strength and now and then rambled about a little, wondering why the others did not return. They watched longingly the point of road where the party had disappeared, even Miss Lily peered vainly into the empty distance.
Miss Castlevaine looked at her watch for the twentieth time. "It is a quarter past five!" she frowned. "Where can they be!"
"We may as well sit down while we wait," laughed Mrs. Albright. "Wandering round in a circle won't bring them any quicker." She lowered herself plumply beside Miss Sterling.
"Now don't you go to worrying!" she said. "They haven't been eaten up by bears or carried off by hawks. Probably they are having so good a time they have forgotten to come back."