So it came that walking and picking, each after her own fashion, it was not until my hand was full to inconvenience—for I was eager to carry back a splendid bouquet to Aunt Rossiter—that I observed the sun had disappeared behind the great Table Mountain and the brief twilight of that part of the world was fast becoming enveloped in the dark mantle of night. It so chanced I had got in advance of Charlotte during the last five or ten minutes, having passed her as she turned aside to look at something, and with increasing apprehension I saw how far we had strayed from the hotel—considerably farther than I had ever intended—and I felt how wrong and silly I had been to allow my sister's influence to have any weight with me in opposition to the advice of my guardian, who knew so much better what was in every way good for us than we could possibly know for ourselves.
Turning hastily to Charlotte, I exclaimed:
"Oh, Lotty, how dark it is growing, and we have walked such a distance! Oh, it was very foolish of us!"
Charlotte stopped suddenly and looking up and around her with a scared expression, said in an angry and alarmed voice: "Foolish indeed! why in the name of wonder, Mechie, were you so stupid as not to observe it before? and what did you run on for at such a rate, so fast and so far? It was as much as I could do to keep up with you! It is all your fault."
I knew well from past experience that to argue with Charlotte in her present mood would but increase her irritation and lose more of that time we had already spent too much of. When frightened or angry she seldom stopped to think of the justice or injustice her accusations, but unreflectingly cast anything at me which came into her head. Amidst my own distress, however, I could not withstand saying: "Well, it was very careless of me, I must confess, but indeed, Lotty, you cannot but fairly acknowledge that, having been the proposer and leader of this walk, it rested principally with you to be its regulator as to time and distance; and though I did not exactly act upon any defined impression of that kind, I am nevertheless conscious of having been in a manner influenced by it, and—"
"Proposer and leader!" interrupted Charlotte, angrily; "do you think I liked this stupid walk? I am not such a baby as you are, to find amusement wherever I go in picking up pebbles and flowers! It's just you all over, Mechie, to talk such nonsense!"
"Well, never mind, Lotty, who is in fault, but let us do our best to escape the consequence of our imprudence, and return at once," I answered, gently, seeing I was but wasting the precious minutes.
"Yes, that is if we can," said Lotty, gazing about her with a thoroughly perplexed look; "let me see—which way did we come? I declare it's more than I know; every side looks alike, and not a vestige of the hotel to be seen."