140 MARGARET.

alone. After a while Margaret made him understand, and he
started off. Seeing him start on the homeward journey,
Nanny, too, would persist in going, and, all Margaret could
do, would not be detained.

She trotted off side by side with Dee, her little bell tinkling
till it was lost to the ear.

With Dee and Nanny gone, Margaret felt very lonely, and
sat there in the silence of the mountains, a helpless little figure
in the embrace of the great peaks looming up about her.

After the sun went down it grew very dark, and Margaret
could distinguish no farther than a few rods away. The sheep
looked like little white patches upon a sombre background.
Margaret began to be very hungry, but there was no way of
getting a supper, as she could not nibble with the sheep. As
the night wore on it cleared away, and after a while the stars
came out one by one through the rifts of the clouds. It
seemed very solemn and impressive up there, so near the
clouds, with no one to see her, and the quiet stars only
looking down upon her. Margaret was calmed by it all and
felt no fear, she even forgot to be hungry, and after a while
went to sleep, with the little white sheep cuddled about her,
her head on one, her arms about another.

She was awakened by joyous barks and the tinkle, tinkle
of a little bell. Dee and Nanny were returning. Margaret
sat up and rubbed her eyes, for a minute forgetting where she
was. The mountain peaks were litup by the morning sun; the