Up till the departure of the eleven-o’clock train Araminta put forth great efforts to be brave; but she had had such little practice in the art, owing to having lived a life for the most part where little bravery was called for, that she did not wholly succeed. However, when she saw Jim Lascelles striding towards them over the mountains at a quarter past six, in response to his cheery, “Hallo, you there!” she contrived to greet him in something of the true Widdiford manner.
In the opinion of Jim Lascelles, the first thing necessary was to get rid of Muffin for an hour. And this was quite easy, for the devotion of that practical mind to the fauna and flora of the neighborhood often caused her to spend an hour in the investigation of a dozen square yards of the Welsh principality.
Upon this fateful morning less than a third of Gwydr had been ascended when a profusion of rare ferns and mosses claimed Muffin’s attention. Jim Lascelles walked forward briskly, with his hand firmly holding the docile sleeve of the Goose Girl.
“Come on,” said Jim, with an affection of gayety that was most honorable to him. “Let us leave that Ragamuffin. In she goes, over her ankles into the mud. Torn a great piece out of her skirt on a brier. By the way, Goose Girl, has Aunt Caroline said anything to you upon the subject of Lord Cheriton?”
Mournfully enough the Goose Girl confessed that Aunt Caroline had.
“Well, you must buck up, you know,” said Jim, cheerily. “You are going to be a countess, and the family of Wakefield—Slocum Magna, I mean—will come again into its own.”
Miss Perry’s only reply was to break forth into a succession of slow-drawn sobs, which were so heavy and majestic that Jim declared they shook the mountain.
“Here is a dry place,” said he. “Let us sit down before you do some damage to the scenery.”
They sat down together upon Gwydr, with the chill mists enfolding them. For twenty minutes the Goose Girl said nothing, but merely sobbed to herself slowly and softly with the daffodil-colored mane pressed against Jim’s shoulder. Such depth and power had the Goose Girl’s emotion that it really seemed to Jim Lascelles that, had her heart not been a particularly robust organ, it must have been broken in pieces.
“I am afraid,” said Jim, rather miserably, “I have been a bit of a cad for leading you on, you great silly Goose.”