at-sized groom
on his bony black charger dead still: his mistress, a girl of about
eleven or twelve or thirteen, with an arm bowed at her side, whip
and reins in one hand, and slips of golden brown hair straying on her
flushed cheek; rocks and trees, high silver firs rising behind her, and
a slender water that fell from the rocks running at her pony's feet.
Half-a-dozen yards were between the charger's head and the pony's
flanks. She waited for us to march by, without attempting to conceal
that we were the objects of her inspection, and we in good easy swing of
the feet gave her a look as we lifted our hats. That look was to me like
a net thrown into moonlighted water: it brought nothing back but broken
lights of a miraculous beauty.

Burning to catch an excuse for another look over my shoulder, I heard
her voice:

'Young English gentlemen!'

We turned sharp round.

It was she without a doubt who had addressed us: she spurred her pony
to meet us, stopped him, and said with the sweetest painful attempt at
accuracy in pronouncing a foreign tongue:

'I sthink you go a wrong way?'

Our hats flew off again, and bareheaded, I seized the reply before
Temple could speak.

'Is not this, may I ask you, the way to Sarkeld?'

She gathered up her knowledge of English deliberately.

'Yes, one goes to Sarkeld by sthis way here, but to-day goes everybody
up to our Bella Vista, and I entreat you do not miss it, for it is
some-s-thing to write to your home of.'

'Up at the tower, then? Oh, we were there last night, and saw the bronze
horse, mademoiselle.'

'Yes, I know. I called on my poor sick woman in a but where you
fell asleep, sirs. Her little ones are my lambs; she has been of
our household; she is good; and they said, two young, strange, small
gentlemen have gone for Sarkeld; and I supposed, sthey cannot know all
go to our Bella Vista to-day.'

'You knew at once we were English, mademoiselle?'

'Yes, I could read it off your backs, and truly too your English eyes
are quite open at a glance. It is of you both I speak. If I but make my
words plain! My "th" I cannot always. And to understand, your English
is indeed heavy speech! not so in books. I have my English governess.
We read English tales, English poetry--and sthat is your excellence. And
so, will you not come, sirs, up when a way is to be shown to you? It is
my question.'

Temple thanked her for the kindness of the offer.

I was hesitating, half conscious