ren, as she called them, Basil and Susan D., running about with
their butterfly-nets, shouting and calling to each other. Did they think
of her, as she hourly thought of them? Did Uncle John miss her? She must
always miss him, no matter how happy she might be with other friends. A
wave of homesickness ran through her, and brought the quick tears to her
eyes; but she brushed them away with an indignant little shake of her
head.

"Goose!" she said. "When will you learn that it is a physical
impossibility to be in two places at once? You don't want to leave this
beautiful place and these dear people yet? Of course, you don't! Well,
then, don't behave so! But all the same, it would be good to hear Uncle
John's voice!"

At this moment she heard,--not the beloved voice for which she
longed,--but certainly a sound, breaking the stillness of the afternoon;
a sound made neither by wind nor water. It did not sound like a bird,
either; nor--a beast?

"Oh, to be sure!" thought Margaret. "It may be a sheep. I saw the flock
up there this morning. Of course, it is a sheep."

The sound came again, louder this time, and nearer; something between a
snorting and a blowing; it must be a very large sheep to make such a
loud noise.

Margaret turned to look behind her; but it was not a sheep that she
saw.

Just behind the rock on which she was sitting the land rose in a high,
green shoulder, on the farther side of which it sloped gradually down to
a little valley. Over this shoulder now appeared--a head! A head five
times as big as that of the biggest sheep that ever bore fleece; a head
crowned by long, sharp, dangerous-looking horns. And now, as Margaret
sat transfixed with terror, another head appeared, and another, and
still another; till a whole herd of cattle stood on the ridge looking
down at her.

Jet black, of colossal size, with gleaming eyes and quivering nostrils,
they were formidable creatures to any eyes; but to poor Margaret's they
were monsters as terrible as griffin or dragon. All cattle, even the
mildest old Brindle that ever stood to be milked, were objects of dire
alarm to her, but she had never seen animals like these. Tales of the
wild cattle of Chillingham, of the fierce herds that roam the Western
prairies and the pampas of the South, rushed to her mind. She felt fear
stealing over her, a wild, unreasoning panic which neither strength nor
reason could resist. She dared not move; she dared not cry out for help;