"Where do you come from? Timbuctoo? Isn't she a funny-looking girl, Miss Forster?"
But the lady, who was the children's governess, passed on.
"Hush!" she said. "Don't be so rude, Peter; and how often am I to tell you that you are to take no notice of strange children."
"But she isn't a common child. Who is she?"
This much Harebell heard, but no more. They passed her by as if she had been a stone upon the road. She looked wistfully after them.
"In India, I would have asked them to spend the day with me, and they would have been glad. They're very rude and horrid!"
Tears came to her eyes.
"I shan't be able to live, unless I find somebody to play with. Oh, I wish I had a puppy! I wish I had something to cuddle in my arms, something that would be able to look at me with living eyes!"
She retraced her steps. It seemed no good to go farther on. Evidently people would not make friends with her in England!
"I shall have to make up a friend," she said to herself, and before she had reached her aunt's house she was in the world of dreams.