“Oh, Miss Ruperta, we shall be too late for tea,” suggested the maid.
“Tea!” said Ruperta. “Our souls are before our tea! I must speak to her, or else my heart will choke me and kill me. I will go—and so will Compton.”
“Oh, yes!” said Compton.
And they hurried after the preacher.
They came up with her flushed and panting; and now it was Compton's turn to be shy—the lady was so tall and stately too.
But Ruperta was not much afraid of anything in petticoats. “Oh, madam,” said she, “if you please, may we speak to you?”
Mrs. Marsh turned round, and her somewhat aquiline features softened instantly at the two specimens of beauty and innocence that had run after her.
“Certainly, my young friends;” and she smiled maternally on them. She had children of her own.
“Who do you think we are? We are the two naughty children you preached about so beautifully.”
“What! you the babes in the wood?”