“Hush!” I said. “What have they been doing with you? Pish, child! that was never—no, no; with all your softness, you couldn’t be such a fool. Who the deuce was it, then? Now, don’t answer; but come with me where we can talk.”
We were already being accosted and offered genteel squiring. The child held to me, terrified, while I laughed, and convoyed her in safety to the open, where we were lucky to encounter one of my party.
“Is it over?” I asked.
“O, faith!” he answered, quizzing my friend, “the manster’s floored; and Parseus refreshing himself on Roman panch; and here, by my soul, ’s Andrameda come to give thanks to her presarver.”
“Well,” I said, “Andromeda’s in better hands for the present; so you must e’en take us where we can talk private, while you mount guard.”
He looked mightily astonished; but, obeying, conducted us to the farthest limits of the grounds—where was little company but the keepers, put to restrain interlopers from the fields beyond—and there set us on a seat, and withdrew. And the moment we were alone, I took the girl and held her at arm’s length.
She was the same as ever, though her figure grown a thought too full for perfection, perhaps. But there were the soft, bashful eyes, and the naïve face, too white under its dark hair, that I loved so well.
“So,” I said, nodding my head, “we meet again, like the town and country mice. And are you still under her dominion, you little brown frump?”
She could not have enough of wondering, and fondling me, and weeping; but her inarticulateness filled me with a horrible foreboding.
“What!” I cried, giving her a little shake; “don’t tell me, miss, that—but, no, I won’t hear it! ’Tis grotesque beyond reason.”