heard a sound a few yards away
from her. It was an odd sound like a queer little squeaky chattering.
It came from the window of the next attic. Someone had come to look at
the sunset as she had. There was a head and a part of a body emerging
from the skylight, but it was not the head or body of a little girl or
a housemaid; it was the picturesque white-swathed form and dark-faced,
gleaming-eyed, white-turbaned head of a native Indian man-servant--"a
Lascar," Sara said to herself quickly--and the sound she had heard came
from a small monkey he held in his arms as if he were fond of it, and
which was snuggling and chattering against his breast.

As Sara looked toward him he looked toward her. The first thing she
thought was that his dark face looked sorrowful and homesick. She felt
absolutely sure he had come up to look at the sun, because he had seen
it so seldom in England that he longed for a sight of it. She looked at
him interestedly for a second, and then smiled across the slates. She
had learned to know how comforting a smile, even from a stranger, may
be.

Hers was evidently a pleasure to him. His whole expression altered,
and he showed such gleaming white teeth as he smiled back that it was
as if a light had been illuminated in his dusky face. The friendly look
in Sara's eyes was always very effective when people felt tired or dull.

It was perhaps in making his salute to her that he loosened his hold on
the monkey. He was an impish monkey and always ready for adventure,
and it is probable that the sight of a little girl excited him. He
suddenly broke loose, jumped on to the slates, ran across them
chattering, and actually leaped on to Sara's shoulder, and from there
down into her attic room. It made her laugh and delighted her; but she
knew he must be restored to his master--if the Lascar was his
master--and she wondered how this was to be done. Would he let her
catch him, or would he be naughty and refuse to be caught, and perhaps
get away and run off over the roofs and be lost? That would not do at
all. Perhaps he belonged to the Indian gentleman, and the poor man was
fond of him.

She turned to the Lascar, feeling glad that she remembered still some
of the Hindustani she had learned when she lived with her father. She
could make the man understand. She spoke to him in the language he
knew.

"Will he let me catch him?" she asked.

She thought she had never seen more surprise and delight than