FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157  
158   159   160   >>  
at afternoon to be alive. In that northern district although summer came late she made up for it by the extreme beauty with which she clothed the landscape; the view from the hill-side was like one of Turner's pictures. As the girls sat chatting, watching the ponies, and idly plucking flowers, they heard footsteps coming along the road, and presently a woman carrying a baby appeared round the corner. She was young and dark and gipsy-looking, and wore large ear-rings and a red cotton handkerchief knotted loosely round her brown throat. She stopped at the sight of Diana and Wendy and the ponies, and seemed to consider a moment. Then she walked boldly up to them, looked keenly in their faces, and evidently chose Diana. "Could you do me a kindness, miss?" she asked. "I've to go up to the farm for a basket. I don't want to carry the baby with me; she's so heavy. If I leave her here on the grass would you keep an eye on her till I come back? I shan't be gone five minutes." Now Diana was fond of babies, and the little dark-eyed specimen, wrapped up in the plaid shawl, was pretty and attractive and fairly clean. For answer she held out her arms, received baby, shawl, and feeding-bottle on to her knee, and constituted herself temporary nurse. "She'll be good till I come back," said the woman, turning up the lane that led to the farm. The small person with the brown eyes was probably accustomed to be handed about. She did not jib at strangers, as might have been expected, but accepted the situation quite amiably. She gurgled in response to Diana's advances, and allowed herself to be amused. Perhaps the vicinity of horses was familiar to her, and she felt at home. Diana, hugging her on her knee, freed her from the folds of the shawl and allowed her to kick happily. She was certainly a fascinating little mortal. In the course of about ten minutes Miss Carr, who had been having a chat at the farm about gardening prospects, returned leisurely down the lane, and was electrified to find Diana sitting by the roadside nursing a baby. "I didn't see any gipsy woman come up to the farm," she said, in answer to the girls' explanations. "You'd better go, Wendy, and see if you can find her, and tell her to come at once and fetch her baby." So Wendy went up the lane to the farm, and asked at the front door and the back door, and looked round the stack-yard and the buildings, but there was never a trace of the gipsy girl. A litt
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157  
158   159   160   >>  



Top keywords:
allowed
 

looked

 

ponies

 
minutes
 

answer

 

bottle

 

expected

 

constituted

 

accepted

 

gurgled


response

 
amiably
 

received

 
situation
 
feeding
 

handed

 

accustomed

 

person

 

turning

 

temporary


strangers

 

happily

 

explanations

 

sitting

 

electrified

 
roadside
 

nursing

 

buildings

 

leisurely

 

hugging


Perhaps

 

amused

 
vicinity
 

horses

 

familiar

 

fascinating

 

gardening

 

prospects

 

returned

 

mortal


advances
 
coming
 

footsteps

 

presently

 

watching

 
plucking
 

flowers

 
carrying
 
appeared
 

cotton