She bestirred herself in quick alarm.
“O dear! what a selfish wretch! You have been keeping me warm all this time at your own cost. O, come away, Richard—come away at once, before it is too late.”
She pulled frantically at me. I laughed.
“I expect you will have to carry me now, Ira. I feel as stiff as a gun barrel.”
“Richard!”
“There, Miss Christmas—nothing but my chaff; but on my word we ought to be moving. Will you come and sit with me a little in my own lodge?”
“O! you mustn’t ask me, Richard.”
“But, supposing I do, and insist?”
“Then I shall obey, of course.”
“And be very unhappy, of course; and a sweet dutiful devoted child. I am learning by degrees, Ira. But I must take you that way, though not to stop, because, with all my ardour, the prospect of that climb back by the fields doesn’t appeal to me, and the road is swept clean by the wind, so that we can walk on it easily, and get back by the main entrance. Come along, child.”