“Because I was so light-hearted and happy at that age.”
“How old are you now, Miss Milly?” asked Aggy, in a tone of increased respect.
“Nineteen,” replied the other with a sigh.
Again Aggy’s pretty round face was rippled by a suppressed giggle, and it is highly probable that she would have given way altogether if Junkie had not returned at the moment and rescued her.
“Here’s the water, Milly. Now, Aggy, have you had enough?”
“Yes, quite enough,” laughed the highly convalescent invalid.
“Well, then, come along wi’ me and I’ll show you the place where Cousin Milly fell down. You needn’t come, Milly. I want to show it to Aggy all by herself, an’ we won’t be long away.”
“Very well, Junkie, as you please. I daresay I shall manage to pass the time pleasantly enough till you return.”
She leant back on a thick heather bush as she spoke, and indulged herself in that most enjoyable and restful of occupations, on a bright warm day, namely, looking straight up into the sunny sky and contemplating the soft fleecy clouds that float there, changing their forms slowly but continually.
Now it so happened that John Barret, in his botanical wanderings about the Eagle Cliff, in quest of the “rare specimens” that Milly loved, discovered Milly herself! This was not such a matter-of-course discovery as the reader may suppose, for the Eagle Cliff occupied a vast space of the mountain-side, among the rugged ramparts and knolls of which several persons might have wandered for hours without much chance of observing each other, unless they were to shout or discharge the echo-disturbing gun.