They were silent for a moment. Then Judy asked, still more timidly:
"I say, Tim?"
"Well."
"What does he really look like? I can't remember quite. I mean--shall
we recognise him?"
Tim stared at her. "My dear!" he gasped, as though the question almost
shocked him. "Why, he touched me--on the head! I felt it!"
Judy laughed softly; it was only that she wanted to remind herself of
something too precious to be forgotten.
"_I_ kissed him!" she whispered, a hint of triumph in her voice and
eyes.
They stood staring at one another for a little while, weighing the
proofs thus given; then Tim broke the silence with a question of his
own. It was the result of this interval of reflection. It was an
unexpected sort of question:
"Do you know what it is we want?" he asked. "I do," he added hurriedly,
lest she should answer first.
"What?" she said, seeing from his tone and manner that it was important.
"We shall never, never find him this way," he said decisively.
"What?" she repeated with impatience.
Tim lowered his voice. "What we want," he said with the emphasis of
true conviction, "is--a Leader."
Judy repeated the word after him immediately; it was obvious; why
hadn't she thought of it herself? "Of course," she agreed. "That's it
exactly."
"We're looking wrong somewhere," her brother added, and they both
turned their heads in the direction of Uncle Felix who was still
standing on the lawn in a state of bewilderment, examining the
treetops. He expected something from the air, it seemed. Perhaps he was
looking for rain--he loved water so. But evidently he was not a proper
leader; he was even more bewildered than themselves; he, too, was
looking wrong somewhere, somehow. They needed some one to show them how
and where to look. Instinctively they felt their uncle was no better at
this mighty game than they were. If only somebody who knew and
understood--a leader--would turn up!
And it was just then that Judy clutched her brother by the arm and said
in a startled whisper, "Hark!"
They harked. Through the hum of leaves and insects that filled the air
this sweet June morning they heard another sound--a voice that reached
them even here beneath the dense roof of shrubbery. They heard words
distinctly, though from far away, rising, falling, floating across the
lawn as though some one as yet invisible were singing to himself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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