“No,” said Tottie, “I don’t.”
“And won’t you let me call you Merry?” pleaded Pax.
“No, I won’t. I don’t believe you ever carried me on your back, or that my name was Merry.”
“What an unbeliever!” exclaimed Pax.
“You can’t deny that you are merry to-day, Tot,” said May.
Tot did not deny it, but, so to speak, admitted it by starting up and giving sudden chase to a remarkably bright butterfly that passed at the moment.
“And don’t you remember,” resumed Pax, when she returned and sat down again by his side, “the day when we caught the enormous spider, which I kept in a glass box, where it spun a net and caught the flies I pushed into the box for it to feed on? No? Nor the black beetle we found fighting with another beetle, which, I tried to impress on you, was its grandmother, and you laughed heartily as if you really understood what I said, though you didn’t. You remember that, surely? No? Well, well—these joys were thrown away on you, for you remember nothing.”
“O yes, I do remember something,” cried Tottie. “I remember when you fell into the horse-pond, and came out dripping, and covered from head to foot with mud and weeds!”
She followed up this remark with a merry laugh, which was suddenly checked by a shrill and terrible cry from the neighbouring field.
In order to account for this cry, we must state that Miss Lillycrop, desirous of acquiring an appetite for dinner by means of a short walk, left Rosebud Cottage and made for the dell, in which she expected to meet May Maylands and her companions. Taking a short cut, she crossed a field. Short cuts are frequently dangerous. It proved so in the present instance. The field she had invaded was the private preserve of an old bull with a sour temper.