The little black-clad London child pulled at Anthea’s sleeve.
“Look,” she said, “that one there—she’s precious like mother; mother’s “air was somethink lovely, when she “ad time to comb it out. Mother wouldn’t never a-beat me if she’d lived ’ere—I don’t suppose there’s e’er a public nearer than Epping, do you, Miss?”
In her eagerness the child had stepped out of the shelter of the forest. The sad-eyed woman saw her. She stood up, her thin face lighted up with a radiance like sunrise, her long, lean arms stretched towards the London child.
“Imogen!” she cried—at least the word was more like that than any other word—“Imogen!”
There was a moment of great silence; the naked children paused in their play, the women on the bank stared anxiously.
“Oh, it is mother—it is!” cried Imogen-from-London, and rushed across the cleared space. She and her mother clung together—so closely, so strongly that they stood an instant like a statue carved in stone.
Then the women crowded round.
“It is my Imogen!” cried the woman.
“Oh it is! And she wasn’t eaten by wolves. She’s come back to me. Tell me, my darling, how did you escape? Where have you been? Who has fed and clothed you?”
“I don’t know nothink,” said Imogen.