"That is right. Yes, she understands perfectly; she knows all about it, and she loves him to distraction. Well, Lovely One, that Lady is a Cat; that is what she is."
Another sneeze and yawn, louder than before.
"Precisely; you think so, too. A cat! 'cat, puss, tit, grimalkin, tabby, brindle; whoosh!' was he fond of Dickens, a Pink-nosed Pearl? She is no more sick than you are, Beloved. She has been, no doubt, and now she has forgotten how to be anything else, but she is liable to find out. Your Aunt, beloved, proposes to put this lady through a Course of Sprouts. Tu-whit! your Aunt has spoken. We may also remark, in this connection only, tu-whoo!"
Her companion's only reply to this speech was a loud breathing, which might be caused by emotion, or by heat and fatigue; at all events, he did not seem inclined to speak. A thought flashed through Hugh's mind,—the man might be a deaf-mute. What a terrible affliction! It was bad enough to be lame; but to be deaf, and in company with a girl with a voice like that! Hark! she was speaking again, slowly and meditatively, rather as if talking to herself than to some one else:
"Your Aunt has not got her plan entirely laid out yet. She knows what must finally happen: the patient must be got out of that house, and away on a sea-voyage; but there will have to be various occurrences first. Your Aunt's ingenuity, Adonis, will be put to a severe strain. At present your Aunt is alone, and in difficulties. Many oxen come about her, fat bulls of Bashan compass her on every side, as the Scripture hath it; you are not acquainted with the Scripture, Adonis, so there is no earthly use in your putting on that look of keen intelligence. But there may be balm in Gilead; I think Gilead may be in this very place above our head, my Popolorum Tibby. Now, what is the matter with him?"
At this moment a sound was heard,—a bark, distant at first, but coming momently nearer; a loud, joyous, inquiring bark. It was answered from below by a sound combining bark, sneeze, and snort; there was a violent shaking of the branches, and, next moment, a brown and white setter sprang out from under the wall, and stood at gaze. Another instant, and a second dog, his exact image, appeared on the brow of the slope, careering toward him. There was a rapturous duet of barking and sneezing, and then the two swept away over the brow, and were gone.
"That is the most heartless puppy I ever saw," the voice said, slowly. "A woodchuck, I suppose. 'Twas ever thus. The moral is, don't make love to strange puppies, however beautiful; but he was lovely, and he understood me. No more of him! The question is, what should I find at the top of this beanstalk—I should say, willow-tree? There is an—answer to—every question—if—you only ask it—quick enough!"
The last words were spoken so low that Hugh did not catch their import. Alarmed, however, by the continued rustling of the willow branches, he rose hurriedly to his feet, and was about to steal away as quietly as might be; but at that moment a hand was laid on the coping of the wall,—a brown hand, slender but muscular; the next moment an arm followed, and a young woman swung herself across the opening, and, leaning on the wall, looked full in his face.
It was the vision of an instant only; the lithe figure, the face full of careless power, the deep-set blue eyes, startling into black as they met his, while the slender brows met above them in angry amazement; then one hand reached back to the willow branch, the girl dropped from sight, and he heard her rustle from branch to branch, and then heard the light, swift sound of running feet through the fern, and dying away in the distance.