"I'm sorry," he said, "that we have no woman to wait on you."
"I want nothing, thank you!" answered Mercy, feeling very weak and ready to cry, but restraining her tears. "What a curious house this is!"
"It is a sort of doll's house my brother and I have been at work upon for nearly fifteen years. We meant, when summer was come, to ask you all to spend a day with us up here."
"When first we went to work on it," said Ian, "we used to tell each other tales in which it bore a large share, and Alister's were generally about a lost princess taking refuge in it!"
"And now it is come true!" said Alister.
"What an escape I have had!"
"I do not like to hear you say that!" returned Ian. "You have been taken care of all the time. If you had died in the cold, it would not have been because God had forgotten you; you would not have been lost."
"I wanted to know," said Mercy, "whether Nature would speak to me.
It was of no use! She never came near me!"
"I think she must have come without your knowing her," answered Ian. "But we shall have a talk about that afterwards, when you are quite rested; we must prepare for home now."
Mercy's heart sank within her—she felt so weak and sleepy! How was she to go back over all that rough mountain-way! But she dared not ask to be left-with the leopard about! He might come down the wide chimney!