“I hope not. It might have spoiled the verse; and Thor ghyll is beautiful.”
“I’ll never forget that cat. I can see it yet. How its eyes blazed when it sprang at me! Oh, I don’t know how you dared seize it in your hands.”
She was outside the window now, standing on a strip of turf that ran between house and drive.
“I didn’t give a second thought to it,” said Martin in his offhand way.
“I can never thank you enough for saving me,” she murmured.
“Then I’ll tell you what,” he cried. “To make quite sure you won’t forget, I’ll try and persuade mother to have the skin made into a muff for you. One of the men is curing it, with spirits of ammonia and saltpeter.”
“Do you think I may need to have my memory jogged?”
“People forget things,” he said airily. “Besides, I’m going away to school. When I come back you’ll be a grown-up young lady.”
“I’m nearly as tall as you.”
“Indeed you are not.”