“I shall always be afraid of meeting that man.”
“What, after the gallant knight has killed him? Oh, I see, you are afraid that Sir Perrino would not slay him, but would bind him in chains, and keep him at his castle for an artist’s model. Then we will appeal to another knight, Lord Harry the Saucy, and he shall do the deed. Where is the gallant I wis not,” she added, laughing.
“I know who he is,” said Julia, who was trembling still.
“So do I,” said Cynthia, merrily. “Well, never mind, my darling sissy; don’t let a thing like that upset you. Come: be brave. They are gone now, and we shall never see them again.”
“Never see them again,” said Julia, with a wild look in her eye. “That man will haunt me wherever I go.”
“Will he, dear?” said Cynthia, merrily; “then the gallant knight shall not quite kill him, though I don’t believe in haunting ghosts. Here they are.”
“Cynthia!” gasped Julia, with a cry of horror.
“I don’t mean the ogres, you little coward; I mean the gallant knights.”
“Why, we began to think we had missed you,” cried Lord Artingale, who, with Mr Perry-Morton, met them at a turn of the road, the latter gentleman’s patent leather shoes being a good deal splashed, in spite of the care with which he had picked his way.
“Oh, Mr Perry-Morton,” cried Cynthia, ignoring Artingale, and, with a mischievous light in her eye, addressing their artistic friend, “my sister has been so shamefully insulted by a great big man.”