"Man! man!" cried Bumps frantically. "I'm left behind. Come and take me down, oh, pleath take me down!"
He started and looked up at her in astonishment, then a smile crossed his lips.
"A baby in a tree! How on earth did a small mite like you perch yourself up there?"
"I've been lefted!" sobbed Bumps. "They've run away, and I'm lotht!"
The young man laughed, then sprang up the tree, and in another minute Bumps stood on firm ground once again.
"Thank you," she said prettily, her face wreathed in smiles. "Now pleathe help me find Jack and Jill."
"Oh no!" ejaculated the young man; "that I refuse to do. I'm in a hurry. If you come along with me I will put you in the road again, and then you will soon find your way home."
Bumps trotted after him quite reassured, talking fast all the time.
"We're having a truant-day, and I've got to stay out till tea-time—Jill thaid so. It is such a long day, and I'd like to go back to Miss Falkner—she's our governess. She takes me in her lap, and I like her. Does your gun go off? Are you killing any one? Jack likes guns. I don't! Jill and him have runned after a deer with horns. I'm thorry I couldn't run after it too. But I think I'll go home by myself, I'm tired of being a truant."