“I’m tired,” she said; “I daresay we shall find Nan presently. She is sure to be safe, as she is under Miss Danesbury’s care.”
Cecil made no remark, but set off by herself to find the little children. Presently, standing on a little knoll, and putting her two hands round her lips, so as to form a speaking trumpet, she shouted to Hester. Hester came slowly and apparently unwillingly toward her, but when she got to the foot of the knoll, Cecil flew down, and, taking her by the hand, ran with her to the top.
“Oh, do come quick!” she exclaimed; “it is such a pretty sight.”
Down in the valley about fifty yards away were the ten or twelve little children who formed the infant portion of the school. Miss Danesbury was sitting at some distance off quietly reading, and the children, decked with flowers, and carrying tall grasses and reeds in their hands, were flying round and round in a merry circle, while in their midst, and the centre of attraction, stood Annie, whose hat was tossed aside, and whose bright, curling hair was literally crowned with wild flowers. On Annie’s shoulder stood little Nan, carefully and beautifully poised, and round Nan’s wavy curls was a starry wreath of wood-anemones. Nan was shouting gleefully and clapping her hands, while Annie balanced her slightest movement with the greatest agility, and kept her little feet steady on her shoulders with scarcely an effort. As the children ran round and round Annie she waltzed gracefully backwards and forwards to meet them, and they all sang snatches of nursery rhymes. When Cecil and Hester appeared they had reached in their varied collection—
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.”
Here Nan exclaimed, in her clear, high-pitched voice—
“Me no fall, Annie,” and the small children on the ground clapped their hands and blew kisses to her.
“Isn’t it pretty? Isn’t Annie sweet with children?” said Cecil, looking round to Hester with all the admiration she felt for her friend shining in her face. The expression, however, which Hester wore at that moment really startled Cecil: she was absolutely colourless, and presently she called aloud in a harsh, strained voice—
“Be careful of her! How wicked of you to put her like that on your shoulder! She will fall—yes, I know she will fall; oh, do be careful!”
Hester’s voice startled the children, who ceased sinking and dancing: Annie made a hasty step forward, and one little voice alone kept singing out the words—