"So you're lost, are you?" replied the driver of the wagon, in a brisk, cheerful voice. "Well, there's one thing, you needn't stay lost."
Martine looked at the speaker, who had now jumped down from his seat and was standing beside her. He was a tall youth, with reddish brown hair and a frank, pleasant face, and she judged that he was two or three years her senior.
"It's fortunate," he said, "that we happened to have an order for some groceries up beyond at the Jones farm. I don't come this way once a month, and there is very little passing any day; so if you had waited for some one to rescue you, you would have had to wait a long time."
Martine was not sure that she liked the word "rescue." All her life she had prided herself on her independence, and it irritated her to realize that she had put herself in a position that obliged her to depend on a stranger.
"Perhaps I shouldn't have said 'lost,'" she responded; "I've only just missed my way a little, and if the fog should lift I could easily find my way back to my friends."
"If the fog should lift!" The boy laughed heartily. "Are you acquainted with the habits of fogs? Or perhaps it behaves differently in the States; but in this part of the world, when it sets in late in the afternoon, it generally stays all night. But come," he continued more gently, "you'll catch cold if you stay here much longer. I'm on my way to Annapolis myself, and I'll very gladly take you there. Come," he continued, holding out his hand; "you'd better get into the wagon here, and I have a rope by which we can lead the horse behind."
"Oh, no," said Martine; "I can ride just as well. I don't mind the fog, if you will let me follow your wagon."
"Nonsense!" protested the boy; "you can't go fast enough to keep warm, and your horse might make a misstep; and besides," he concluded, "I have a sister about your age and I know what's best for girls. Come, jump in."
To her own great surprise Martine found herself obeying the strange youth; perhaps, after all, she felt that there would be more comfort for her in his covered wagon than in picking her way through the fog, over the rough road. When she was seated, he handed her a carriage robe which he bade her wrap around her; then he tied his rope to the horse's bridle, saying as he did so:
"I know this animal well, and he'll follow us like a tame cat."