Miss Mackellar could not help feeling glad that the lively game was now a little removed from her bench. She did not, however, believe in luck, unless it was bad, and she wondered earnestly why this little interlude of peace was granted to her. Perhaps it was to give her a chance to think about serious things. She did so.
But wasn’t it almost too quiet? Hunter and tiger had vanished around the corner. That had happened half a dozen times before, but this time it seemed so long—
Miss Mackellar rose to her feet with a worried frown.
“I shouldn’t let that child out of my sight,” she thought. “I am failing in my duty! They’ll have to come back and stay where I can see them, or”—she sighed—“or I suppose I’ll have to follow where they go.”
She walked around the turn of the path. No one in sight!
She walked on a little. She stopped to listen. Not a sound!
Then she went back to the bench and called:
“Natalie! Natalie!”
It is strange what a sinister effect may be caused by calling a person who does not answer. As soon as she had called, Miss Mackellar grew really frightened. She actually ran up the path, and, meeting a nursemaid with a perambulator, she cried:
“Oh, did you see a little girl with a tiger? No—I mean a little girl in a pink hat and a red-haired woman?”