start towards her, but then he restrained
himself. "The child ought to be whipped," he broke out angrily. "You
must not take her prattle so seriously."

"But _she_ was so serious," said Maria Dolores. "Oh, when she
threatened to lie down in the river, and let herself be drowned--!" Her
voice failed her, as at the inexpressible.

"No fear of that," said John. "The first touch of the cold water (and
icy-cold it is, a glacier-stream, you know) would bring her to her
senses. But come! You must not think of it any more. You have had a bad
shock, but no bones are broken, and now you must try to banish it all
from your mind."

"What an unaccountable child she is!" said Maria Dolores. "Surely it is
unnatural and alarming for a child to have her head so teeming with
strange freaks and fancies. Oh, I pray God to grant that nothing may
happen to her."

"The most serious evil that's likely to happen to her for the present,"
said John, "will be an indigestion of marrons glaces."

Maria Dolores' tears had gone now. She smiled. But afterwards she looked
grave again. "Oh, I wish I could get the dread of something happening to
her out of my heart. I wish she wasn't so pale and fragile-looking," she
said. Then there came a gleam in her eyes. "But you were going for a
walk, and I am detaining you."

"The object of my walk has been accomplished," said John.

"Oh?" questioned she.

"I was walking in the hope, on the chance, that I might meet you," he
hardily explained. "It's such an age since I've seen you. Are you making
for the garden? I pray you to be kind, and let me go with you. I've been
an exile and a wanderer--I've been to Roccadoro."

She had rebegun her ascension of the hill. The path was steep, as well
as rugged. Sometimes John had to help her over a hard bit. The touch of
her hand, soft and warm, and firm too, in his; the sense of her
closeness; the faint fragrance of her garments, of her hair,--these
things, you may be sure, went to his head, went to his heart. The garden
lay in a white blaze of sunshine, that seemed almost material, like an
incandescent fluid; but the entrance to the avenue was dark and
inviting. "Let us," he proposed, "go and sit on a marble bench under the
glossy leaves of the ilexes, in the deep, cool shade; and let's play
that it's a thousand years ago, and that you're a Queen (white Queen
Blanche, like a queen of lilies), and that I'm your minstrel-man."

"What song will you sing me?" asked sh