“Oh, I don’t know, but I did.” And again, after a pause, she said—“Oh, I am so glad to be here! It is so pleasant riding here in the open, free, fresh air, crushing out such a good smell from the dewy grass. Papa! are you there? I can’t see you.”
He rode close up alongside of her: he was not sure but what she might be afraid of riding in the dark shadows, so he laid his hand upon hers.
“Oh! I am so glad to feel you,” squeezing his hand hard. “Papa, I should like to get a chain like Ponto’s, just as long as your longest round, and then I could fasten us two to each end of it, and when I wanted you I could pull; and, if you didn’t want to come, you could pull back again; but I should know you knew I wanted you, and we could never lose each other.”
“I’m rather lost in that plan of yours; the details, as you state them, are a little puzzling; but, if I make them out rightly, I am to go about the country, like the donkeys on the common, with a clog fastened to my hind leg.”
“I shouldn’t mind your calling me a clog, if only we were fastened together.”
“But I do mind you calling me a donkey,” he replied.
“I never did. At least I didn’t mean to. But it is such a comfort to know that I may be as rude as I like.”
“Is that what you’ve learnt from the grand company you’ve been keeping to-day? I expected to find you so polite and ceremonious, that I read a few chapters of Sir Charles Grandison, in order to bring myself up to concert pitch.”
“Oh, I do hope I shall never be a lord or a lady.”
“Well, to comfort you, I’ll tell you this: I’m sure you’ll never be a lord; and I think the chances are a thousand to one against your ever being the other, in the sense in which you mean.”
“I should lose myself every time I had to fetch my bonnet, or else get tired of long passages and great staircases long before I could go out walking.”
“But you’d have your lady’s-maid, you know.”
“Do you know, papa, I think lady’s-maids are worse than ladies. I should not mind being a housekeeper so much.”
“No! the jam-cupboards and dessert would lie very conveniently to one’s hand,” replied her father meditatively. “But Mrs. Brown tells me that the thought of the dinners often keeps her from sleeping; there’s that anxiety to be taken into consideration. Still, in every condition of life, there are heavy cares and responsibilities.”
“Well! I suppose so,” said Molly gravely. “I know Betty says I wear her life out with the green stains I get in my frocks from sitting in the cherry-tree.”
“And Miss Browning said she had fretted herself into a headache, with thinking how they had left you behind. I’m afraid you’ll be as bad as a bill of fare to them to-night. How did it all happen, goosey?”
“Oh, I went by myself to see the gardens; they are so beautiful! and I lost myself, and sat down to rest under a great tree; and Lady Cuxhaven and that Mrs. Kirkpatrick came; and Mrs. Kirkpatrick brought me some lunch, and then put me to sleep on her bed—and I thought she would waken me in time; and she didn’t; and so they’d all gone away; and, when they planned for me to stop till to-morrow, I didn’t like saying how very, very much I wanted to go home—but I kept thinking how you would wonder where I was.”