“My dear child, there are no marvels; or, at any rate, none for you to know. All you have to do is to go, and to fetch a certain document. Whether you know any more about it, is a question for me to consider.”
“Oh, papa—to raise me up so, and to cast me down like that! And I was giving you credit for having trusted me so entirely! And very likely you would not even have sent me for this document, if you had your own way about it.”
“Alice,” Sir Roland answered, smiling at her knowledge of him, “you happen to be particularly right in that conjecture. I should never have thought of sending you to a lonely and forsaken place, if I were allowed to send any one else, or to go myself. And I have not been happy at thinking about it, ever since the morning.”
“My father, do you think that I could help rejoicing in such an errand? It is the very thing to suit me. Where are the keys, papa? Do be quick.”
“I have no intention, my dear child, of hurrying either you or myself. There is plenty of time to think of all things. The sun has not set, and that happens to be one of the little things we have to look to.”
“Oh, how very delightful, papa! That makes it so much more beautiful. And it is the astrologer’s room, of course.”
“My dear, it strikes me that you look rather pale, in the midst of all your transports. Now, don’t go if you are at all afraid.”
“Afraid, papa! Now you want to provoke me. You quite forget both my age, it appears, and the family I belong to.”
“My pet, you never allow us to be very long forgetful of either of those great facts; but I trust I have borne them both duly in mind, and I fear that I should even enhance, most needlessly, your self-esteem, if I were to read you the directions which I now am following. For, strangely enough, they do contain predictions as to your character such as we cannot yet perceive (much as we love you) to have come to pass.”