"What is it you laugh at?" she asked suddenly, her voice changing at once to an imperious dignity.
"I was thinking," said I, "that your head, Miss Curwen, only reaches to my chin."
"If God made me a dwarf," said she, with a freezing stateliness, "it is very courteous of you to reproach me with it—the most delicate courtesy, upon my word."
She was in truth ever very sensitive as to her height, and anxious to appear taller than she was; for which anxiety there was no reason whatever, since she was just of the right stature, and an inch more or less would have been the spoiling of her; which opinion I most unfortunately expressed to her, and so made matters worse. For said she—
"Your condescension, Mr. Clavering, is very amiable and consoling;" and with that she left me alone in the room, until such a time as breakfast should be ready. I went out, however, in search of Mary Tyson, and finding her, explained my design, and asked her to put together in a bundle the least quantity of clothes which would suffice for Dorothy until she reached France. Mary fell in with the plan immediately, and began to regret her age and bulk that would hinder her from keeping pace with us. But I cut short her discourse, and bidding her hasten on the breakfast, made shift with a basin of water and a towel to hurriedly repair the disarray of my toilet.
For now every instant of delay began to drag upon my spirits. Once upon the hillside, it would be strange, I thought, if we did not contrive to come undetected to Ravenglass. We had to cross two valleys, it is true, but they were both rugged and bleak, with but few dwellings scattered about them, and those only of the poorer sort, inhabited by men cut off from the world by the barrier of the hills, who from very ignorance could not, if they would, meddle in their neighbours' affairs. The one danger of the journey that I foresaw lay, as I have said, in the great fall of snow.
But here within the walls of the house it was altogether different. Danger seemed impending about me. Every moment I looked to hear the beat of hoofs upon the road, and a knocking on the door. It was, I assured myself, the most unlikely thing that on this one day the officers should come for Dorothy Curwen, but the assurance brought me little comfort I tasted in anticipation all the remorse which I should feel if the girl should be taken at the very moment of deliverance.
I was the more glad, therefore, when, on coming into the garden, I found Dorothy already dressed for the journey, in a furred waistcoat and a hood quilted and lined with a rose-coloured taffety.
"That is wise," said I, "for I fear me, Miss Curwen, we shall have it cold before we get to our journey's end."
She said never a word, but stood looking at me, and if glances could make one cold, I should have been shivering then.