"I am willing to risk it; if you do knock me down, I can but get up again."
I require no warmer invitation. With arms extended, like the sails of a windmill, I hurl myself into the embrace of Sir Roger Tempest. The next moment I am standing beside him on the gravel-walk, red and breathless, but safe.
"I hope I did not hurt you much," I say with concern, turning toward him to make my acknowledgments, "but I really am very much obliged to you; I believe that, if you had not come by, I should have been left there till bedtime."
"It must have been a very unpleasant speech that you made to deserve so severe a punishment," he says, looking back at me, with a kindly and amused curiosity.
I do not gratify his inquisitiveness.
"It was something not quite polite," I answer, shortly.
We walk on in silence, side by side. My temper is ruffled. I am planning five distinct and lengthy vengeances against Bobby.
"I dare say," says my companion presently, "that you are wondering what brought me in here now—what attraction a kitchen-garden could have for me, at a time of year when not the most sanguine mind could expect to find any thing good to eat in it."
"At least, it is sheltered," I answer, shivering, thrusting my hands a little farther into the warm depths of my muff.
"I was thinking of old days," he says, with a hazy, wistful smile. "Ah! you have not come to the time of life for doing that yet. Do you know, I have not been here since your father and I were lads of eleven and twelve together?"