Her ideas were anywhere but with the dream of a husband. ‘Could we stay on another day?—’
‘My dear girl! Another night on that crazy stool! ‘Besides, Mariandl is bound to go to-day to her new place, and who’s to cook for us? Do you propose fasting as well as watching?’
‘Could I cook?’ she asked him humbly.
‘No, you couldn’t; not for a starving regiment! Your accomplishments are of a different sort. No, it’s better to get over the pain at once, if we can’t escape it.
‘That I think too,’ said she, ‘and we should have to buy provisions. Then, brother, instantly after breakfast. Only, let us walk it. I know the whole way, and it is not more than a two days’ walk for you and me. Consent. Driving would be like going gladly. I could never bear to remember that I was driven away.
And walking will save money; we are not rich, you tell me, brother.’
‘A few florins more or less!’ he rejoined, rather frowning. ‘You have good Styrian boots, I see. But I want to be over at the Baths there soon; not later than to-morrow.’
‘But, brother, if they know we are coming they will wait for us. And we can be there to-morrow night or the next morning!’
He considered it. He wanted exercise and loved this mountain-land; his inclinations melted into hers; though he had reasons for hesitating. ‘Well, we’ll send on my portmanteau and your boxes in the cart; we’ll walk it. You’re a capital walker, you’re a gallant comrade; I wouldn’t wish for a better.’ He wondered, as he spoke, whether any true-hearted gentleman besides himself would ever think the same of this lonely girl.
Her eyes looked a delighted ‘No-really?’ for the sweetest on earth to her was to be prized by her brother.