The oldest girl looked around, and saw Marielle pursuing her, and supposed that she, too, had been frightened by the bear, and was running away. So this only made them run the faster. The youngest of the little girls had dropped her blueberries at first; but the boy and the oldest girl had contrived to keep theirs until they were alarmed anew by Marielle. And now they dropped their baskets too, and ran on as fast as they could run.
“‘There they go,’ said Lucy.”—Page [146].
Marielle found that she could not overtake them, and she was afraid to leave Lucy and Rollo alone. So she came back to the place. Lucy and Rollo had climbed up to the top of a little hillock, in order to see.
“Could not you make them hear you?” asked Rollo.
“Yes,” said Marielle, “they heard me, and looked round, but they would not stop. They only ran away so much the faster.”
“Where do you think they will go?” said Lucy.
“I don’t know,” said Marielle, despondingly.
In a few minutes, they saw Royal and Thomas coming back. They did not come by the same way that they went, but farther out towards where the children had run away. They looked hurried, and Royal had an anxious expression of countenance.
“What silly children,” he said, “to be frightened so much! I did not think they would be frightened so much! Which way did they go?”