“Not in the evening, little mistress. You know your mother would not allow it.”
“She will not care this time. Oh, Baltè, you will have no more chances to please me!”
“But surely I am going to be with you in the Pythia House, little mistress?” cried Baltè, frightened.
“There, Baltè, don’t cry. Of course you will.”
But Baltè had already consented to her little mistress’s wish.
The two entered the lane at nightfall, climbed the short steep path beside the stream to the very wall of the cliff.
“But, Missy, I should think you would rather stay down near the highroad where you could glimpse the folk passing.”
“Not to-night, Baltè. It is only the air I want and to be still, very still.”
She slipped into a cleft of the hillside and drew Baltè with her. How quiet it was. A cricket chirped above her on the hillside, lonely in the stillness. At the opening of the lane the highroad was half hidden by the rocks.