“Well, I shall have Cecil to talk to, so after all it doesn’t much matter,” said Swanhild graciously.
“But, unfortunately, she also has become betrothed,” said Frithiof, watching the bewildered little face with keen pleasure, and seeing the light of perception suddenly dawn on it.
Swanhild caught his hand in hers.
“You don’t mean—” she began.
“Oh yes,” cried Frithiof, “but I do mean it very much indeed. Come,” and he hurried her down the grassy slope to the river. “I shall tell Cecil every word you have been saying.” Then, as she rose to meet them, he said with a laugh, “This selfish child thinks we might have put it off till the end of the tour for her special benefit.”
“No, no,” cried Swanhild, flying toward Cecil with outstretched arms. “I never knew it was to you he was betrothed—and you could never be that horrid, moony kind who are always sitting alone together in corners.”
At which ingenuous congratulations they all laughed so immoderately that Mons Horgheim the cat was roused from his afternoon nap on the steps of the station, and after a preliminary stretch strolled down toward the river to see what was the matter, and to bring the sobriety and accumulated wisdom of his fourteen years to bear upon the situation.
“Ah, well,” said Swanhild, with a comical gesture, “there is clearly nothing for me but, as they say in Italy, to stay at home and nurse the cat.”
And catching up the astonished Mons, she danced away, eager to be the first to tell the good news to Roy and Sigrid.
“It will be really very convenient,” she remarked, to the infinite amusement of her elders. “We shall not lose Frithiof at all; he will only have to move across to Rowan Tree House.”