The little girl stared harder. "Ate him? Marry? What, has she been
married all this time to somebody who's been eaten and never let on?
Oh, I say, what a game!" And she threw back her head and laughed till
the garden rang again.

"O hush, you dreadful little girl!" I implored, catching her
by the arm, and terrified beyond measure by the loudness of her mirth.
"Don't make that horrid noise--we are certain to be caught if you
don't stop-- --"

The little girl broke off a shriek of laughter in the middle and shut
her mouth with a snap. Her eyes, round and black and shiny like boot buttons,
came still further out of her head. "Caught?" she said eagerly.
"What, are you afraid of being caught too? Well, this is a game!"
And with her hands plunged deep in the pockets of her coat she capered
in front of me in the excess of her enjoyment, reminding me of a very fat
black lamb frisking round the dazed and passive sheep its mother.

It was clear that the time had come for me to get down to
the gate at the end of the garden as quickly as possible,
and I began to move away in that direction. The little girl at once
stopped capering and planted herself squarely in front of me.
"Who are you?" she said, examining me from my hat to my boots
with the keenest interest.

I considered this ungarnished manner of asking questions impertinent,
and, trying to look lofty, made an attempt to pass at the side.

The little girl, with a quick, cork-like movement,