With which retort, Mr. Ralph Ashley pointed to the slipper-less foot, which was visible beneath Miss Fanny's skirt, and laughed.
Ralph would then have made immediate pursuit of the slipper, but Verty detained him.
The young man called Longears, pointed out the rosetted boat to that intelligent serviteur, and then turned to the company.
In two minutes Longears returned, panting, with the slipper in his dripping mouth, from which it was transferred to the foot of its mistress, with merry laughter for accompaniment.
This little incident was the subject of much amusing comment to the party—in which Miss Fanny took her share. She had soon recovered her good-humor, and now laughed as loudly as the loudest. At one moment she certainly did blush, however—that is to say, when, in ascending the hill—Verty and Redbud being before—Mr. Ralph referred to the delight he had experienced when he "saluted" her in crossing—which he could not help doing, he said, as she was his favorite cousin, and her cheek lay so near his own.
Fanny had blushed at this, and declared it false;—with what truth, we have never been able to discover. The question is scarcely important.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
UP THE HILL-SIDE AND UNDER THE CHESTNUTS.
Thus leaving the sedgy stream behind, with all its brilliant ripples, silver sands, and swaying waterflags, which made their merry music for it, as it went along toward the far Potomac,—our joyful party ascended the fine hill which rose beyond, mounting with every step, above the little town of Winchester, which before long looked more like a lark's nest hidden in a field of wheat, than what it was—an honest border town, with many memories.
Verty and Redbud, as we have said, went first.