“And we’ve had the best time!” exclaimed Mollie.

“And such adventures,” added Grace.  “Will you have more chocolate?”

“No, thank you.  That was fine.  Now I must try and get dry.  But I’m used to this sort of thing.  I’m from the West, and I’ve been in more than one flood.”

“You have!” cried Amy, and the others knew of what she was thinking—­her own case.  “I hope he didn’t have the same sort of trouble I had, though,” she thought.

“Perhaps if you were to walk along your clothes would dry quicker,” said Betty.  “And if you went on to Judgeville you might be able to get a tailor to press them.”

“Thanks, I believe I will.  That is, if you don’t mind being seen with such a disreputable figure as I cut.”

“Of course we don’t mind!” declared Betty.  “We are getting rather travel-stained ourselves.”

“Our trunks will be waiting for us at your cousin’s house, Betty,” spoke Grace, for it was there they were to spend the last night of their now nearly finished tour.  “We can freshen up,” went on the girl who loved candy, “and enter into town in style.  I hope mamma put in my new gown and another pair of shoes.”

“Grace Ford!  You don’t mean that you’d put on a new dress to finish up this walking excursion in, do you?” asked Mollie.

“Certainly I shall.  We don’t know who we might meet as we get into Deepdale.”

“We will hardly get in before dusk,” said Betty.  “From Judgeville there is the longest stretch of all, nearly twenty-two miles.”

“Oh, dear!” groaned Grace.  “We’ll never do it.  Why did you arrange for such a long walk, Betty?”

“I couldn’t help it.  There were no other relatives available, and I couldn’t have any made to order.  There was no stopping place between here and home.”

“Oh, I dare say I can stand it,” murmured Grace.  “But I guess I won’t wear my new shoes in that case.  Twenty-two miles!”

“It is quite a stretch,” said Mr. Blackford.

He helped Grace put away the alcohol stove, and the cups in which the chocolate had been served.  They were washed in the little stream, and would be cleansed again at the house of Betty’s cousin.

“You haven’t asked us when we are going to give you that five hundred dollar bill,” said Mollie, as they started for Judgeville.

“Well,” spoke Mr. Blackford, with a laugh, “I didn’t want to seem too anxious.  I knew that it was safe where you had put it, Miss Nelson,” and he looked at Betty.  “Besides, I have been without it so long now that it seems almost as if I never had it.  And from all the good it is going to do me, perhaps I might be better off without it now.”

“We didn’t exactly understand what you meant by the note you wrote,” said Betty.

“Well, I’ll tell you how that was,” he said, frankly.  “You see, I was left considerable money by a rich relative, but I had bad luck.  Maybe I didn’t have a good business head, either.  Anyhow, I lost sum after sum in investments that didn’t pan out, and in businesses that failed.  I got down to my last big bill, and then I heard of this little business I could get control of in New York.