"Five minutes," said the clock. "Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Twenty—"
"How soundly the child sleeps," Aunt Mary whispered, peeping in a little later to look at her niece. "These afternoon naps are the best thing in the world for her overworked little brain. I wish I could fill Chauncery with children, and let them run wild in the garden." She felt, not for the first time, how duty seemed to pull two ways at once, for there were many things she would fain have done had her duty to her mother not stood in the way.
Someone else came and looked at Mollie.
"Asleep!" Prudence exclaimed, with a smile. "Never mind, I can manage.
It is getting very easy."
* * * * *
Mollie did not open her eyes the moment she woke up; she lay still, enjoying the warmth, the sweet scents, and the balmy air, so different from the cold winds of early spring. Presently she yawned, stretched herself like a sleepy kitten, and finally sat up and opened the lazy eyes.
"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "Prue must have come and found me asleep. I wonder where she is."
She rose to her feet and looked about her as usual. She was in a place quite different from any she had seen hitherto. At her back stretched an orange-grove—there was no mistaking it, for the trees, planted evenly in rows, were laden with thousands of oranges, ripe and unripe, while the waxy white blossom with its golden heart still grew in clusters among the glossy dark leaves, sending its perfume out with the warm wind far and near. Before her, divided from the grove by a narrow, roughly fenced road, Mollie saw a wide, undulating plain, its surface covered somewhat scantily with coarse grass and occasional clumps of bracken. There were gum trees, large and small, their thin blue-green leaves hanging limply from the grey boughs, and throwing but little shade on the ground beneath. Some distance away a creek wound between wide banks of shingly sand and low boulders. At the nearer end a gum tree had fallen across the stream and had been left to form a crossing. Mollie thought it did not look a very inviting bridge to cross on a dark night.
It looked hot out there in the open. Mollie turned back to the orange-grove, cool and inviting, and had almost decided to explore in that direction, when the sound of voices fell upon her ear, and, turning again, she saw a group of children crossing the scrub land in front. In spite of wide hats and sunbonnets they were easily recognizable. The boys were walking in front and carried spades and pickaxes over their shoulders; the two girls were loitering along behind, and carried between them a large round article which might be a tub, a cradle, or a sieve. They were heading for the creek, and, as Mollie watched, Hugh lifted his hand and pointed towards the fallen log.
"Dick and Jerry are first to-day, and they have got over without any help from me," Mollie said to herself, with a tinge of jealousy, which, however, she quickly got rid of—jealousy not being part of a Girl Guide's equipment. She put her hands up to her mouth in the way she had seen the Australians do, and shouted "Cooo-eeeeeee!", with a creditably sustained shrill note at the end. Her call brought the children to a standstill, and they waited for her to join them.