“Oh, Philly! Oh, Grandfather! Oh, Grandfather!” wailed Susan. She felt that the end of the world had come.
But deliverance was at hand.
Out of the woods appeared a man and a boy. The man easily overtook Phil and lifted him in his arms.
“Don’t be afraid, missy,” called he to Susan above Phil’s screams. “Come along with me.”
The boy had gathered up the scattered bundles, and he now grasped Susan’s hand, and so, dripping with rain, the little party vanished into the shelter of the woods.
[CHAPTER VI—THE GYPSIES]
Susan sneezed twice, coughed, and looked about her.
She stood in a tent, round like a circus tent, and the air was heavy with smoke from a fire smouldering on the ground. There were no doors or windows in the tent, and but little light entered on this dark afternoon through a half-dozen rents in the roof.
But Susan made out in the gloom not only the man and boy who had brought her there, but a plump, dark woman, with gold hoops in her ears, who was gently wiping the rain from Phil’s face, three or four ragged children dressed in bright reds and yellows, staring intently at her with big black eyes, and a dog or two, discreetly lurking in the dim background.
Susan sneezed again, and the woman turned from Phil and spoke.