“Mousie?”
“Yes——?”
“Are you asleep?”
“No—are you?”
“No. I say.”
“Yes?”
“Shall we escape?”
“O-O-Oh....”
This was Mousie putting her lips in that particular way she has, and running her little eyebrows up. And this was not a conversation of one evening, it was a conversation of a hundred rush-light vigils, the burden of a hundred corner-talks. And to run from one end of a hay-field to another was a joy, and to look at the wide world from the window of the family coach, was an enchantment.
One day, as they were walking with their governess in the gardens, something unusual occurred. Mousie cut her hand badly with a sharp strand of Pampas grass, and the blood flowed so swiftly from the fingers that the governess became alarmed. Hurrying the child into the gardener’s cottage she asked for cold water and a bandage for the wound. Robin followed, distressed and silent, while the gardener’s wife eagerly fetched everything she could supply.