Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/191

Rh had made a long wreath of crimson oak-leaves, and we had thrown it round and round her shoulders and neck, till it looked like a mantle of red, with long ends trailing down behind. Her golden curls fluttered like sunbeams across it, and as she ran lightly before us, and, lifting up one end of the crimson wreath in her hand, looked archly through it over her shoulder, laughing and crying out, "Now, I am an oak-tree running away from you," Jim drew a long, sighing breath and whispered to me: "Oh, Will, does she look like a mortal child? I think she is an angel and will fly away presently."

At that instant she stumbled over a projecting root of a tree and fell heavily to the ground without a cry. She was several rods in advance of us; before we reached her she had fainted.

We were almost paralyzed with terror; we were two miles from home, and on the top of a rough and rocky ledge, the face of which was so thickly grown with scrub oaks that we had found great difficulty in forcing our way through. "Oh, Will, how are we to get her home?" gasped Jim, as he lifted her up. The poor little white face, with its yellow curls, fell limp and lifeless on his shoulder, and the torn oak wreaths tangled themselves around his arms. She looked as if she were dead; but in a few moments she opened her eyes, and said: "I am not hurt brother Jim, not a bit. Where is the pretty green stone?"