He saw her hesitate. Then her sudden smile broke out.
"What'll you have?" she said, catching hold of the nearest child. "Mother
Bunch?"
And off she flew, running, twisting, turning with the merriest of them, her loosened hair gleaming in the sun, her small feet twinkling. Now it was Helbeck's turn to stand and watch. What a curious grace and purpose there was in all her movements! Even in her play Miss Fountain was a personality.
At last a little girl who was running with her began to drag and turn pale. Laura stopped to look at her.
"I can't run any more," said the child piteously. "I had a bone took out of my leg last year."
She was a sickly-looking creature, rickety and consumptive, a waif from a Liverpool slum. Laura picked her up and carried her to a seat in a yew arbour away from the games. Then the child studied her with shy-looking eyes, and suddenly slipped an arm like a bit of stick round the pretty lady's neck.
"Tell me a story, please, teacher," she said imploringly.
Laura was taken aback, for she had forgotten the tales of her own childhood, and had never possessed any younger brothers or sisters, or paid much attention to children in general. But with some difficulty she stumbled through Cinderella.
"Oh, yes, I know that; but it's lovely," said the child, at the end, with a sigh of content. "Now I'll tell you one."
And in a high nasal voice, like one repeating a lesson in class, she began upon something which Laura soon discovered to be the life of a saint. She followed the phrases of it with a growing repugnance, till at last the speaker said, with the unction of one sure of her audience: