Nancy | Page 8

just now that I looked a fool last night! perhaps you
will not mind trying how it feels!"
So saying, he seizes the ladder--a light and short one--and makes off
with it. I cry, "Bobby! Bobby!" suppressedly, several times, but I need
hardly say that my appeal is addressed to deaf ears. I remain sitting on
the wall-top, trying to look as if I did not mind, while grave misgivings
possess my soul as to the extent of strong boot and ankle that my
unusual situation leaves visible. Once the desperate idea of jumping
presents itself to my mind, but the ground looks so distant, and the
height so great, that my heart fails me.
From my watch-tower I trace the progress of Sir Roger between the
fruit-trees. As yet, he has not seen me. Perhaps he will turn into another
walk, and leave the garden by an opposite door, I remaining
undiscovered. No! he is coming toward me. He is walking slowly along,

a cigar in his mouth, and his eyes on the ground, evidently in deep
meditation. Perhaps he will pass me without looking up. Nearer and
nearer he comes, I hold my breath, and sit as still as stone, when, as
ill-luck will have it, just as he is approaching quite close to me, utterly
innocent of my proximity, a nasty, teasing tickle visits my nose, and I
sneeze loudly and irrepressibly. Atcha! atcha! He starts, and not
perceiving at first whence comes the unexpected sound, looks about
him in a bewildered way. Then his eyes turn toward the wall. Hope and
fear are alike at an end. I am discovered. Like Angelina, I--
....'"stand confessed, A maid in all my charms."
"How--on--earth--did you get up there?" he asks, in an accent of slow
and marked astonishment, not unmixed with admiration.
As he speaks, he throws away his cigar, and takes his hat off.
"How on earth am I to get down again? is more to the purpose," I
answer, bluntly.
"I could not have believed that any thing but a cat could have been so
agile," he says, beginning to laugh. "Would you mind telling me how
did you get up?"
"By the ladder," reply I, laconically, reddening, and, under the
influence of that same insupportable doubt concerning my ankles,
trying to tuck away my legs under me, a manoeuvre which all but
succeeds in toppling me over.
"The ladder!" (looking round). "Are you quite sure? Then where has it
disappeared to?"
"I said something that vexed Bobby," reply I, driven to the humiliating
explanation, "and he went off with it. Never mind! once I am down, I
will be even with him!"
He looks entertained.

"What will you do? What will you say? Will you make use of the same
excellently terse expression that you applied to me last night?"
"I should not wonder," reply I, bursting out into uncomfortable laughter;
"but it is no use talking of what I shall do when I am down: I am not
down yet; I wish I were."
"It is no great distance from the ground," he says, coming nearer the
wall, standing close to where the apricot is showering down her white
and pinky petals. "Are you afraid to jump? Surely not! Try! If you will,
I will promise that you shall come to no hurt."
"But supposing that I knock you down?" say I, doubtfully. "I really am
a good weight--heavier than you would think to look at me--and
coming from such a height, I shall come with great force."
He smiles.
"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