"The prettiest picture I've seen for years!" vowed the General. "How that little Larpent girl changes! She is like a piece of quicksilver. There's no getting hold of her. How old is she?"
"She is nearly twenty," said Bunny with the swiftness of ownership.
"Nearly twenty! You don't say so! She might be fourteen at the present moment. Look at that! Look at it!" For Toby was suddenly whizzing like a butterfly across the lawn in a giddy flight that seemed scarcely to touch the ground, the little girl still upon her shoulder, the elder child standing apart and clapping her hands in delighted admiration.
"Yes, she is rather like fourteen," Maud said, with her tender smile. "Do you know what she did the other day? It was madness of course, and my husband was very angry with her. I was frightened myself though I have more faith in her than he has. She climbs like a cat, you know, and she actually took both those children up to a high bough of the old beech tree; I don't know in the least how she did it. None of the party seemed to think there was any cause for alarm till Jake came on the scene. He fetched them down with a ladder—all but Toby who went higher and pelted him with beech nuts till he retreated—at my urgent request."
"And what happened after that?" questioned Saltash, with his eyes still upon the dancing figure. "From what I have observed of Jake, I should say that an ignominious retreat is by no means in his line."
Maud laughed a little. "Oh, Jake can be generous when he likes. He had it out with her of course, but he wasn't too severe. Ah, look! She is going to jump the sun dial!"
Sheila turned to her. "Surely you are nervous! If she fell, the little one might be terribly hurt."
"She won't fall," Maud said with confidence.
And even as she spoke, Toby leapt the sun dial, leaving the ground as a bird leaves it, without effort or any sort of strain, and alighting again as a bird alights from a curving flight with absolute freedom and a natural adroitness of movement indescribably pleasant to watch.
"A very pretty circus trick!" declared the General, and even Bunny's clouded brow cleared a little though he said nothing.