The little girl watched with fascinated eyes. Down the ravine crept a thin, brown body. Now it looked this way, then that. Hardly touching the earth, it flew from one high rock to the other. Then it dipped into the hollow between the two hills and was gone.
This time Mollie did not stir from her veranda, but through her brain flashed the thought—the ghost at last!
In another moment she saw a black head rise up on a level with her eyes. Mollie gave a gasp of surprise, then was silent. A thin, brown creature moved softly toward her on velvet feet. Mollie hardly breathed. Never in her life had she beheld so odd, so exquisite a figure.
A girl about her own age stood before her. Her hair hung over her shoulders, black and straight. Her cheeks were a deep carmine. Her complexion was too dark to be olive, yet it was neither brown nor red. She was dressed in a thin, soft garment that fitted her closely from her bare neck to her ankles. Around her waist she had knotted a crimson scarf. On her head she wore a fantastic wreath of scarlet autumn leaves.
The newcomer stared at Mollie. Once, like a startled fawn, she turned to flee. But Mollie was too wise to speak or to move. Reassured, the quaint visitor drew nearer.
Mollie smiled at her quietly. “Are you afraid of me?” she asked gently. “Come here, I shall not hurt you.”
Suddenly the stranger’s dark, sad little face burst into a smile. “I am not afraid,” she insisted. “I am never afraid. But is it well with you?” She spoke English, but with a strange guttural note Mollie had never heard before.
“Why should it not be well with me?” asked Mollie in surprise.
“Because,” the wood sprite answered, “you were lost yesterday in the hills.”
“How did you know?” Mollie demanded.