For an instant he had half the mind to leave her to find it; but at once
convicted of his absurdity, "Then I shall take you with me," he said,
making a step toward her,--"because you are, or will be, lost."
At the motion, she darted past and stood defiantly just out of his
reach. Mr. Raleigh attempted to seize her, but he might as easily have
put his hand on a butterfly; she eluded him always when within his
grasp, and led him such a dance up and down the forest-path as none
other than a will-o'-the-wisp, it seemed, could have woven. All at once
a dark figure glided out from another alley and snatched the sprite into
its arms. It was a colored nurse, who poured out a torrent of broken
French and English over the runaway, and made her acknowledgments to Mr.
Raleigh in the same jargon. As she turned to go, the child stretched her
arms toward her late pursuer, making the nurse pause, and, putting up
her little lips, touched with them his own; then, picturesque as ever,
and thrown into relief by the scarlet sack, snowy turban, and sable skin
of her bearer, she disappeared. It is doubtful if in all his life Mr.
Raleigh would ever receive a purer, sweeter kiss.
He had promised to be at the Bawn that evening, and now accordingly
sought the shore, where the Arrow lay, and was soon within the shelter
of his own house. The arrangement of toilet was a brief matter; and that
concluded, Mr.
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