His very heart leaped
within him with fright, for in another moment he would have shot the poor
little child that, with wan, wasted face, was looking at him from between
the raspberry bushes. It was a little girl, about as old as you are, Lady
Mary. She was without hat or shoes, and her clothes were all in tatters.
Her hands and neck were quite brown and sun-burned. She seemed frightened
at first, and would have hid herself, had not the stranger called out
gently to her to stay, and not to be afraid, and then he hurried over the
log bridge, and asked her who she was, and where she lived. And she said
'she did not live anywhere, for she was lost.' She could not tell how many
days, but she thought she had been seven nights out in the woods. She had
been sent to take some dinner to her father, who was at work in the
forest, but had missed the path, and gone on a cattle track, and did not
find her mistake until it was too late, when she became frightened, and
tried to get back, but only lost herself deeper in the woods. The first
night she wrapped her frock about her head, and lay down beneath the
shelter of a great upturned root. She had eaten but little of the food she
had in the basket that day, for it lasted her nearly two. After it was
gone she chewed some leaves, till she came to the raspberry clearing, and
got berries of several kinds, and plenty of water to drink from the creek.
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