"You are the dearest children," exclaimed Aunt Florence. "I wish I could take you back to New York with me. You can't remember your grandfather and grandmother at all, can you, Billy?"
"No, wouldn't know 'em if I'd meet 'em."
"It's a shame. Never mind, I'll tell them all about you two and Gerald, and some day I'm coming north on purpose to take you all home with me, and we'll have the best kind of a time."
"Guess you wouldn't think of coming after us if we lived where we do now, and it was a hundred years ago," suggested Betty.
"Why not?"
"Oh, because you would have had to come from Detroit in a canoe, and this was all woods then, deep, deep woods full of Indians."
"Dear me, Betty, don't speak of it! It seems to me there are woods enough here now. My! What a dreary place! the undergrowth is so thick you can't see the water, and yet you can hear every wave. Betty Grannis, do you mean to tell me that you ever come out here to the old fort alone?"
"Oh, not very often; it is rather dreary, isn't it, auntie? You see, this is an old, old Indian trail, and that is why the pines meet overhead. Let's walk faster. I don't believe you'll want to stay long, auntie, after you get to the fort."
"I agree with you, Betty, this is a lonesome walk. I almost wish we'd stayed at home."
"Let's turn around and go back," suggested Billy.