“The tiger crept through the tangled jungle.” Gabby’s voice was a thrilling whisper. “He put one paw softly before the next, barely disturbing the song of the magpies far above. His long tongue licked his chops at the thought of the delicious meal that trotted before him.”

Phoebe Pensington, a five-year-old orphan being sent back to live with English relatives, shivered as Gabby, whose soft brown eyes had taken on a tigerish glare, continued.

“But when the tiger reached the edge of the forest, he stopped short. The goat was walking along the shore, his white hooves prancing at the very edge of the tumbling azure waves of the Indian Ocean. And the tiger was afraid of water. His stomach urged him to follow, but his heart pounded with fear. He stopped in the speckled shade of a bongo-bongo tree—”

“But Miss Gabby,” Phoebe broke in anxiously, “what did the tiger have for supper that night if he didn’t eat the goat? Wouldn’t he be hungry?”

Gabby’s brown eyes lit with amusement. “Perhaps the tiger was so mortified by his own lack of courage that he went to a far-off mountaintop and lived on nothing but fruits and vegetables.”

“I don’t think so.” Phoebe was a very practical little girl. “I think it’s more likely that the tiger would have gone after that goat and eaten him up.”

“The tiger had a cat’s natural abhorrence of water,” Gabby said. “He didn’t see the beauty of the waves as they danced into shore. To him the curling waves looked like the claws of tiny crabs, reaching out to nibble his bones!”

Phoebe gave a thrilled little shriek just as the door to the cabin swung open, breaking the spell of Gabby’s voice.

The black-gowned figure of Eudora Sibbald stared at the scene before her. Miss Gabrielle Jerningham was unaccountably positioned on the floor. As always, her hair was tumbling out of its knot and her dress was rumpled. It wasn’t for Mrs. Sibbald to recognize the beauty of Gabby’s shining golden-brown hair as it worked loose from pins and combs and assumed its normal position: halfway up and halfway down. No—what Phoebe’s governess saw was a proper hoyden, a young lady whose hair echoed her general demeanor.

“Phoebe.” Her voice rasped like a rusty gate.

Phoebe scrambled to her feet and bobbed a curtsy.

“Miss Jerningham,” Mrs. Sibbald continued, rather as if she were addressing a recalcitrant scullery maid.

Gabby was already on her feet and greeting Mrs. Sibbald with a charming smile. “Do forgive us—” she began.

But Mrs. Sibbald interrupted. “Miss Jerningham, I might have misunderstood you.” Her bearing indicated that she never misunderstood anything. “I trust that I did not hear you mention nibbled bones?”

Really, Gabby thought to herself, Sibbald couldn’t have entered at a worse moment.