the becoming, fleecy cloud she had hidden there, twisted it round
her head, and crept out of the side door and along the first path.

Down in the garden the ground was white with fallen rose leaves,
and the air full of their dying breath; a clump of pampas grass
stood tall and soft against the sky; some native trees, left
growing among the cultivated shrubs, stretched silver-white
arms up to the moon and gave the little hurrying figure a ghostly
kind of feeling. Out of the gate and into the first paddock,
where the rose scent did not come at all, and only a pungent smell
of wattle was in the thin, hushed air. More gum trees, and more
white, ghostly arms; then a sharp movement near the fence, a thick,
sepulchral whisper, and a stifled scream from Meg.

"Here's the c--c--c--catapult, M--Meg; t---take it," Bunty said,
his face white and miserable.

"You little stupid! What do you mean coming creeping here like
this?" Meg said, angry as soon as her heart began to beat
again.

"I only w--wanted to p--p--please you, M--M-Meggie," the little
boy said, with a bitter sob in his voice.

He had put both his arms round her waist, and was burying his nose
in her white muslin dress. She shook him off hastily.

"All right; there--thanks," she said. "Now go home, Bunty;
I want to have a quiet walk in the moonlight by myself."