On the threshold Fanny met me, gasping under this burden, and at sight of me some blessed spirit within her seemed to give her pause. "No, no," she muttered, and drew back as if suddenly ashamed of her errand. On I came, however, and prudence prevailed. With a sound that might have been sigh or sob she snatched the load from me and gathered it in, as best she could, under her cloak.
"Oh, Midgetina!" she whispered meaninglessly. "Now we must talk." And having wedged back the catch of my door, we moved quickly and cautiously in the direction of Wanderslore.
We climbed on up the quiet hill. The cool, fragrant, night seemed to be luring us on and on, to swallow us up. Yet, there shone the customary stars; there, indeed, to my amazement, as if the heavenly clock of the universe had set back its hands on my behalf, straddled the constellation of Orion.
Come to our beech-tree, now a vast indistinguishable tent of whispering, silky leaves, Fanny seated herself upon a jutting root, and I stood panting before her.
"Well?" she said, with a light, desolate laugh.
"Oh, Fanny, 'well'!" I cried.
"Can't you trust me?"
"Trust you?"
"Oh, oh, mocking-bird!—with all these riches?"