She then rushed down the avenue, fearing to be caught and discovered. She ran so fast that her long cloak tripped her, and she suddenly fell and cut her lip. When she came to herself she had to wipe some stains of blood away from her injured lip with her handkerchief.
She just reached the lodge gates in time to shout once again, 'The ghost! the ghost!' when the woman who lived in the lodge came out, prepared to lock up for the night.
'Who may you be?' said the woman.
'I'm the ghost. Let me through!' screamed Hollyhock.
And she really looked so frightful, with her big black eyes, and blood-stained face, and streaming lip, that the woman, who was a stranger, and did not know her, called out, 'Get ye gone at once or I'll set the dogs on you. The shortest road ye can go'll be the best. Ye 're not a ghost, but a poor cracked body.'
Hollyhock was sincerely glad to find herself once again on the highroad, but in some mysterious way her dislike for Ardshiel had vanished, and she felt furiously angry with Ivor Chetwode for daring to take notice of her plain sister, Gentian.
She got into the house without much difficulty, bathed her swollen lip, and retired to bed to think of Ivor's blue eyes. What a nice boy he must be!—a real bonnie lad, one worth talking to. Why should a girl be a dunce all her days, when there was such a laddie at Ardshiel? Ah, well, she would know more about Master Ivor before long.
She slept soundly, and forgot the troubles of her miserable day. In her dreams she thought of the Precious Stones and Ivor, and imagined them all fighting hard to gain the goodwill of Gentian, who was a freckled little girl, not to be named with her, Hollyhock. If that was the sort of thing that went on at Ardshiel, and the birch-woman did not appear, it must be rather a nice place, when all was said and done.