Herself of the squarest proportions, Mrs. Hodnet was bustling about to find something wearable by the tall slim girl. At last, after her best violet silk had been found impracticable, a linsey skirt and a soft silk shawl seemed possible materials; and she withdrew to superintend the preparations for tea; and Wilmet departed likewise, from the mixed motives of believing that the two girls wanted to be left to a tête-à-tête, of uneasiness as to the whereabouts of her sons, and desire to secure the swallowing of the like portion by Felix and Clement.

The moment the door was shut, Lady Caergwent threw both arms round Robin, and hugged her tight, with a long sob-like sound of 'O Copsey, Copsey!'

'Then it was—'

'Yes—yes—yes! Did you know?'

'Willie told me he might possibly come; but it was too uncertain to mention. We thought Lady Mary would be sure to keep him.'

'Mary was from home.'

Robina longed to ask more, but did not quite know how, and applied herself to make the best of Mrs. Hodnet's toilette apparatus, in dealing with the hair, which the tempest had deprived of every fragment of head-gear. 'Shall I twist it, or do it up in long plaits?'

'Any way for me to get down again! Oh, how little I thought it!'

'Felix was in despair when he found you were missing; but you see the first thought of all my brothers has always been Cherry.'

'Quite right—and you see I wasn't there at all. You know my ears are stupid, and though there's more sense in your music than in most people's, it did not put out of my head some marsh-cinquefoil I thought I had spied as we went by; and I fancied, while you were singing, I could creep off after it, without all the fuss of the gentlemen wanting to get it for me. No one saw me, and I did find some delicious things, only I'm afraid I lost them. On I went, from one to another, like the bad folks in an allegory, away from the rocks and the singing, lured by the flowers in the bog—till, sure enough, I lost my way, and the sharp wall of rock above me, which I thought part of the quarry, turned out to be no such a thing. There, to bring in the demoniacal element, a horrid little black cow came up and stared at me. You know what a goose I am about horned monsters; and I thought the whole herd would be coming home to be milked, so I didn't stare the beast out of countenance, as I am aware is the correct thing; but as there was a high ledge, a sort of shelf in the precipice, I scrambled up out of the way. I suppose the animal had never seen a young woman in such a position, for not only did it stand in contemplation, but two or three of its congeners came up and stood gazing at me, out of their spiteful, curly, shaggy faces, with white pointed horns, like the imps of the piece. Then it struck me that these were not quiet christianable kine going home to be milked, but horrid Scottish cattle at pasture, keeping no hours at all, but free to stand staring till I dropped on their horns. So I put whatever dignity I had in my pocket, and squalled, fancying you were all round the corner, but the only effect was to make the brutes toss their heads and stare the harder.'