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purple ribbon which had the words “St. Gunburga’s” upon it in black letters.
    The whole stretch of the playground lay between Peter and the building. The wall over which he looked ran parallel to the wall which bounded the high road.
    Peter held the ivy apart, and searched the dreary waste of asphalt for Rose Ellen. She was not one of those playing tag. His eyes searched the groups without finding her. He saw her at last, standing close to the wall, on his side of the ground, it is true, but some fifty yards away. She stood close to the wall, and at first he was not sure that it was she, for her head was turned away. Then she moved and began to walk slowly in his direction.
    Peter’s heart gave a leap. It was like a miracle. He had to see her, and she came. He did not know that every day Rose Ellen walked down the ground keeping close to the wall, with her eyes on the asphalt, until she came to a certain place. Every day she stood still when she got to this place, and looked up. She did this because she was playing that she was in a garden, and when she looked up she knew that she would see the trees that grew in the hedge beyond the wall. From her special place she could see how the new buds were coming on.
    The other girls teased her about it. They did not call her Rose Ellen, but just Ellen. They had decided that Ellen was “a little bit off it”. Some of them called her “Moony Loony”. But Rose Ellen continued to walk daily to the bottom of the playground and to stare at the budding trees.
    Peter watched her coming. She walked slowly, and as if she were tired. Her head was bent. When she looked up, and Peter saw her face, he knew straight away all the things which he had come here to find out. He knew at once that he would have to take Rose Ellen away. She was thin, and her pretty colour was gone. There were big black marks under her eyes like smudges. She looked like a doll that had been left out in the rain, but there was something more than that, something which made Peter feel as he had never felt in all his life before, something which he never forgot. It was the patient look in Rose Ellen’s eyes as she lifted them to look at the trees. Peter often wished that he could forget it; but he never could.
    Peter’s feelings always translated themselves into action with the smallest possible delay. He took an acid drop out of his pocket and threw it deftly at Rose Ellen. It just grazed her cheek, and she put up a hand, touched the place, and then went on looking up with the same steady, unseeing gaze. Peter threw another acid drop. It hit her on the nose, and this time Rose Ellen looked down, stooped, picked up the sweet, and stood there staring at it.
    Peter made a speaking-tube of his hands.
    â€œRose Ellen!” he said.
    Rose Ellen tilted her head and looked straight up into the sky.
    â€œRose Ellen!”
    She looked all round in a bewildered fashion. Peter stuck his head out through the ivy.
    â€œRose Ellen!” he said a little louder.
    And then she saw him. Just for a moment every vestige of colour drained out of her little face. Then her hands went up under her chin, tightly clasped together. The colour came back with a rush, making her look like the old Rose Ellen, and she said in a little whispering voice with a deep sigh in it:
    â€œOh, Peter de—ah.”
    Peter could hardly hear the words, but he knew very well what they were. He nodded at Rose Ellen, and said in a terrific stage whisper:
    â€œI’ve come to fetch you away.”
    Rose Ellen sighed again. She shook her head slowly.
    â€œYou can’t,” she said.
    â€œWhy?” said Peter.
    Rose Ellen didn’t know why. She only knew that dreadful, cold finality of unhappiness which paralyses hope and effort. She shook her head again. Peter frowned horribly at her.
    â€œI’ll get you away tonight,” he said. “You’ve got to do what I tell you. Do you hear?