Everybody but Rosie was busy. And Rosie, as though bewitched, was wandering about, gazing up this vista and down that one; examining clumps of bushes.
“Come, Rosie, lunch is most ready,” Maida called to her. And as Rosie didn’t answer, “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for—” Rosie’s voice was muffled. “I thought I saw something—Oh come and see what I’ve found!” Now her voice was sharp and high with excitement.
The children rushed pell-mell in the direction of the voice. Rosie had gone farther than they thought. Indeed she had disappeared entirely. She had to keep calling to guide them. When they came to her at last, she was standing with her back against a tree, the look on her face very mystified, holding in her arms—
“A doll!” Maida exclaimed. “Who could have dropped it? Nobody ever comes here but us.”
It was a cheap little doll of the rag-baby order perfectly new, perfectly clean and dry.
“How did you come to find it?” Laura enquired.
“Well it’s the strangest thing,” Rosie answered in a queer quiet voice. “I was just poking around here, not thinking of anything particularly.... And then I thought I saw something moving—a white figure. I started towards it and then.... And then it seemed to me that something was thrown through the air. Now when I try to remember, I can’t be sure I really did see anything thrown through the air and yet I sort of feel that I did. Anyway I ran to see what it was. When I got there, this doll was lying in the path.”
“How curious!” Maida commented. “You must have imagined the figure, Rosie. See, there’s nobody here.”
A little awed, the children stared through the trees, this way and that. But they stood stock still.