"Oh, Silver Heels!" I murmured, aghast at my own wickedness.
But she was already smiling again, with her slender hands laid on my shoulders.
"All that tastes sweetly—now," she said.
"It is ashes in my mouth," I said, bitterly, and upbraided myself aloud, until she placed her fingers on my face and silently signed me to turn around.
At the same instant a wheezy noise came to my ears, and the next moment, over the edge of the slope, a large, round face rose like the full moon.
Fascinated, I watched it; the wheezing grew louder and more laboured.
"Lady Shelton! Oh, go! go!" whispered Silver Heels. But it was too late for flight had I been so minded.
Suddenly my Lady Shelton's fat feet began to trot as though of their own notion, for her cold, flabby features expressed no emotion, although, from the moment her moon-like face had risen behind the hill, I saw that her eyes were fixed on me.
After her puffed the fat gentleman, Sir Timerson Chank, and behind him came mincing Lord Dunmore, fanning his face with a lace handkerchief, his little gold-edged French hat under his arm. Faith, he was in a rare temper.
Lady Shelton paddled up to Silver Heels, halted, and panted at her. Then she turned on me and panted at me until her voice returned. With her voice, her features assumed a most extraordinary change; billows of fat agitated the expanse of chin and cheek, and her voice, babyish in fury, made me jump, for it sounded as though some tiny, pixy creature, buried inside of her, was scolding me.