Failing to elicit a response from her two presiding heroes, our maiden turned to Sir Walter, who always knew just how things were; and from this the natural step was to the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" (which she had not read so very lately, she thought, with a guilty glance at the trunk and box, which stood in the middle of the room, yawning to be put away), and there was an end of Hildegarde till dinner-time.
"And that is why I was late, dear love!" she said, as after a hasty explanation of the above related doings, she sank down in her chair at the dinner-table, and gave a furtive pat to her hair, which she had smoothed rather hurriedly. "You know you would have brained me with the hammer, if I had not put it away, and that the tacks would have been served up on toast for my supper. Such is your ferocious disposition."
Mrs. Grahame smiled as she helped Hildegarde to soup. "Suppose a stranger should pass by that open window and hear your remarks," she said. "A pretty idea he would have of my maternal care. After all, my desire is to keep tacks out of your food. How long ago was it that I found a button in the cup of tea which a certain young woman of my acquaintance brought me?"
"Ungenerous!" exclaimed Hildegarde with tragic fervour. "It was only a glove-button. It dropped off my glove, and it would not have disagreed with you in the least. I move that we change the subject." And at that moment in came Janet with the veal cutlets.
CHAPTER IV.
A WALK AND AN ADVENTURE.
One lovely afternoon, after they were well settled, and all the unpacking was done, Hildegarde started out on an exploration tour. She and her mother had already taken one or two short walks along the road near which their house stood, and had seen the brand-new towers of Mrs. Loftus's house, "pricking a cockney ear" on the other side of the way, and had caught a glimpse of an old vine-covered mansion, standing back from the road and almost hidden by great trees, which her mother said was Colonel Ferrers's house.
But now Hildegarde wanted a long tramp; she wanted to explore that sunny meadow that lay behind the green garden, and the woods that fringed the meadow again beyond. So she put on a short corduroy skirt, that would not tear when it caught on the bushes, slung a tin plant-box over her shoulder, kissed her mother, who had a headache and could not go, and started off in high spirits. She was singing as she ran down the stairs and through auntie's sunny back yard, and the martial strains of "Bonny Dundee" rang merrily through the clear June air; but as she closed the garden door behind her, the song died away, for "one would as soon sing in a churchyard," she thought, "as in the Ladies' Garden." So she passed silently along between the box hedges, her footsteps making no sound on the mossy path, only the branches rustling softly as she put them aside. The afternoon sun sent faint gleams of pallid gold down through the branches of the great elm; they were like the ghosts of sunbeams. Her ear caught the sound of falling water, which she had not noticed before; she turned a corner, and lo! there was a dusky ravine, and a little dark stream falling over the rocks, and flowing along with a sullen murmur between banks of fern. It was part of the green world. The mysterious sadness of the deserted garden was here, too, and Hildegarde felt her glad spirits going down, down, as if an actual weight were pressing on her. But she shook off the oppression. "I will not!" she said. "I will not be enchanted to-day! Another day I will come and sit here, and the stream will tell me all the mournful story; I know it will if I sit long enough. But to-day I want joy, and sunshine, and cheerful things. Good-by, dear ladies! I hope you won't mind!" and grasping the hanging bough of a neighbouring elm, she swung herself easily down into the meadow.