Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/273

Rh running to and fro like ants whose nest is turned up by the spade.

A big furze bush cast a ragged square yard of alluring shade on the common. Charling flung herself down on the turf in the shadow. "I wonder what they are doing at home?" she said to herself after a while. "I don't suppose they've even missed me. They think of nothing but making the place all flowery for her to see. Nobody wants me—"

At home they were dragging the ornamental water in the park; old Murchison directing the operation with tears running slow and unregarded down his face.

Charling lay and looked at the white road. Somebody must go along it presently. Roads were made for people to go along. Then when any people came by she would speak to them, and they would help her and tell her what to do. "I wonder what a girl ought to do when she runs away from home?" said Charling to herself. "Boys go to sea, of course; but I don't suppose a pirate would care about engaging a cabin-girl—" She fell a-musing, however, on the probable woes of possible cabin-girls, and