“NOW then, let’s change places,” said Loveday impatiently, as Priscilla’s last curl was freed.
“Oh no; you must wait until we have quite reached the top of the hill! You don’t want to make poor Betsy stand here with the carriage dragging her back all the time, do you?”
“I fink Betsy would like to stop and rest for a little while, and I am sure she wouldn’t mind. She is very strong, and I am not a bit heavy. I don’t suppose she feels whether I am in the carriage or not. Do you think she does?”
“She hears you, if she doesn’t feel you,” said Dr. Carlyon.
“Do you think that Priscilla and I and your medicine-case, all put together, weigh as much as you do, father?”
“I think that if we had waited a year or two before we chose a name for you, we should have called you ‘Chatterpie’ instead of Loveday.”
“Oh, I wish you had!” cried Loveday. “Wouldn’t it have been funny: Chatterpie Jane Carlyon? Now, Prissy, do make Betsy stop; we have come to the very top. It is quite flat here.”
“I am going to draw up near that gate,” said Priscilla firmly, “so that I can smell the charlock in that field.”
“That horrid weed!” said Dr. Carlyon. “You surely don’t like that? Whoa, Betsy!” And without much coaxing Betsy came to a standstill by the gate of the field where the charlock grew.
“I love it,” said Priscilla, drawing in deep breaths of the charlock-scented air; “it always reminds me of—of—oh, something—drives, and nice things, and sunny days, and the day you gave me ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales,’ father.”