eonie raised her hand to
summon her ayah squatting on the dressing-room matting, and put an end
to the incessant chattering.

But bolts do not wait upon the clapping of hands before they crash down
upon your defenceless head from out the blue, and the one destined for
her from all time hurled itself at her from out a wispy cloud of
Eurasian gossip.

"Oh! but we can't do that!" announced the peevish high-pitched voice.

"Why not?"

"Ma says we're not to be with her alone. There's all sorts of weird
tales going round about her. Thought you knew. They say she killed
her first husband, and tried to stab someone in Calcutta with that
dagger she wears in her hair; that she lives on the q.t. with a
native--he gave her that gorgeous necklace of pink pearls; has been
seen with him in the compound after dark--Ma watched--and she's
positively dotty at the full moon. Fact! Mrs. Oswald told Ma that
there's no doubt that she's quite mad at times."

The blonde slid her slightly bowed, silken-hosed limbs to the ground,
her face the colour of greenish putty through the superstitions of one
half of her forbears.

"Let's go and find your ma!" said she. "It's full moon to-night."

And after their departure Leonie sat very still on the edge of the bed,
with one foot tucked under her, and the other bare and very perfect
stretched down to the matting; the netting fell in folds behind her,
and her eyes stared into the corner where a one time nameless, unshaped
spook, having taken form and name at last, stood mouthing at her from
the shadows.

She started violently and looked down when her body-woman touched the
arched instep with her wrinkled, dusky hand.

Keenly intuitive, as are all the peoples of India, she had crept
noiselessly across the matting and crouched at Leonie's feet in her
desire to be near the beloved child in her distress.

There was a heaven of love and a world of indecision in the monkey
eyes, but not a trace of fear when the beloved child suddenly twisted
the _sari_ from about the sleek head and pock-marked face and shook her
violently by the shoulder. Instead she rocked herself gently to and
fro, crooning in the toneless cracked voice of the native woman who
tends a white child and loves it.

"Missy--baba, it's ayah!" went the tuneless song, "it's ayah--it's
ayah--be not afraid, baba--baba--it's ayah--ayah--ayah."

Over and over again she repeated the words with her eyes on the
terror-stricken face ab