I pulled myself together, not without some consternation at the phenomenon.
'I came up the hill too fast,' I said to myself, and crept up the slabs of rock that now formed a wet and slippery footway among the firs, with a sensation of horror at the thought of Babiole's trusting her little feet on such a treacherous path.
At the top, a little way beyond the cairn, I came upon her suddenly. She was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, looking out to the western hills, across the slopes of which were lying dense, cloud-like mists, white against the blackness of the darkening hillsides. The last red rays of the sinking sun threw upon her face a weird unnatural glow, and caused her moist eyes to glisten like strange gems in the sun-lit marble of her still features. The wild sweet sadness of her expression, like that of a gentle animal who has been stricken, and does not know why, brought a lump into my throat, and caused me to halt at some distance from her with a feeling of shy respect.
Ta-ta, who sat by her side, with a sensitively-dilating nose on the young girl's knee, saw me at once, but merely wagged her tail as an apologetic intimation that I must excuse her from attendance on me, as she had weightier business on hand than mere idle frisking about my heels.
But the movement in her companion attracted Babiole's attention; she turned her head, saw me, and started up.
The spell was broken; she was in a moment the sweet smiling Babiole of every day. But I could not so soon get over the shock of the first sight of her face: I had seemed to read vague prophecies in the wide sad eyes. I smiled and held out my hand, but I left it to her to open the conversation.
