But Miss Briggs dragged him away without making him any answer.
Presently they came to half-a-dozen steps in an angle, which led over the outer wall. They had slipped under a mysterious archway of leaves and so through the beech hedge in order to reach this ladder of stone.
"Good-bye!" said Miss Briggs; "remember—come back, nice little boy, as soon as you are growed up, and I will marry you. And then we will send Aunt Robina to the poorhouse. Kiss me, nice boy—and now kiss Peter."
With that Miss Briggs disappeared, running as hard as ever she could, so that she would not need to cry within sight.
But as soon as she got to the great circle of the beeches and yews, she burst out sobbing. "He was the very nicest boy—the nicest boy. But of course there could be nothing in it. For he is only a mere child, you know!"
But Boy Hugh walked stolidly up the steps, and so out of Paradise.
"I am very hungry!" he said.
ADVENTURE XXXIX.
THE ADVENTURE OF SNAP'S PORRIDGE.
But he found Providence just over the wall. For there sat Vara and there was the great stone behind which they had spent the night. All his wanderings had just brought him back to where he had started from. But for all that he was exceedingly glad to see Vara.