And after that she exerted herself, and the rest of the ride was a lively time with them all.
It was only two weeks later that Louise wrote to tell Anstice of her engagement.
"I don't know why God has been so good to me," she wrote. "If I had stayed in London I should have missed this joy. I little thought that I would meet my fate in this most lovely backwater. But I should never have married in town. I never saw anyone there whom I cared for, and I may honestly say who would have looked at me. There are such thousands of girls there, and most of them with a certain charm and grace to which I could never attain!"
"As for George, he's all that a girl could desire. He is good, really good, and clever, and brave and unselfish, and I'm a lucky girl to have such a husband in prospect. We are both perfectly happy, as you can imagine; and quite content in our surroundings. I do not mean to leave uncle. The sad thing is, that he may not be here much longer—George has prepared me for that. And he has his sister to look after. But nothing in the world matters when one loves! You must have felt this, and so can understand."
Anstice laughed, and sighed again, and then sat down and wrote Louise a loving letter of congratulation.
About a week later, she took Ruffie out on his pony to the lower Fells near the lake.
Josie and Georgie were having tea with Mrs. Fergusson. Her son was home for his Easter holidays, and he and the little girls were great friends.
Anstice loved having Ruffie to herself. He was full of quaint fancies about the Fells, and knew the names of all, and endowed them with separate personalities of their own. Having passed most of his small life on a couch indoors, this new freedom on the back of a pony who bore him miles away up to the heights which he had dreamed inaccessible to him, almost intoxicated him. His blue eyes blazed ecstatically, and he would frequently break out into song.
"We're getting nearer and nearer God," he announced to Anstice. "I wish I was either a lark or an airman, then I could get nearer still."
They were away in the heart of the hills now, and came out upon a carriage track which zigzagged up across a pass, through two steep ranges of Fells. And then they came upon a broken-down motor-car, and a lady, seated on a bank near, called out for their assistance. She was disappointed when she saw no man was with them.
"It is a bad break somewhere near the axle," she explained to Anstice. "My chauffeur has gone off for assistance. There is a farm we passed a mile or so off. I think it's a screw broken. Happily I am unhurt. I am trying to get through to a friend's house the other side of this pass. I would walk, but I'm suffering from gout."