'A very pretty one and in a very pretty dress,' said Boldero, whom Mrs.

Vereker's violet eyes always threw off his balance in about two minutes.

'No, thank you,' she said, tossing her shapely head in pretty scorn, 'I don't want any flattery; we are too old friends. My dress is lovely, I am well aware, and it has pleased G.o.d to make me not quite a fright. But about Maud, now: don't you know that all the gossip is simple envy; some horrid unkind old woman like Mrs. Fotheringham, with about as much heart as one of these rocks, and her two hoydens of girls? But here comes Major Fenton, who has, I consider, quite neglected me to-day.'

Major Fenton was one of the hosts, and the most eligible of the trio.

'Impossible!' he said, melting under the sweet smile from a stern, languid air which he wore to all the world; 'the duties of my day performed, its pleasures are now, I hope, about to begin. Will you come with me to the waterfall?'

Mrs. Vereker bent two soft orbs on Boldero with a reproachful look, as if to say, 'Why did you not ask me sooner?' and went off in glee with the Major; and Boldero, left in solitude to his own meditations, mentally voted this the dullest, flattest, and most unsuccessful picnic at which it had ever been his ill-luck to be a guest.

When Maud and General Beau arrived at the waterfall, there, of course, was Desvoeux, trying to encourage the Miss Fotheringhams to cross the stream and so ascend to the finest point of view. This was a little more than the Miss Fotheringhams' nerves were equal to: the stream was full and foamed and tossed itself into an angry crest; the water looked black and swift and treacherous. You had to jump on to one boulder, then balance yourself on three stepping-stones through the shallows, then make one good spring to the rock opposite, and the feat was done! This, however, was just too much for the Miss Fotheringhams, who had not been trained in athletics and were not naturally what the Irishmen call 'leppers.' As they were hesitating and refusing, Maud and the General came up, looking very much bored. Maud had been finding her companion almost intolerable, and would have jumped _anywhere_ to be free of him.

There was nothing in it: Desvoeux had been skipping across half-a-dozen times. 'Look,' he said, 'a skip, two hops and a jump, and there you are!

Do try. Don't you see?'

'I see, exactly,' said Maud, gathering up her petticoats and giving her parasol to General Beau.

'Stop! it is not safe,' he cried; 'stop, I implore; the rocks are slippery, the water is deep. I implore, I beseech, I command!'

But the General might as well have commanded the stream to stop, for Maud was gone, and in about two seconds was standing, flushed, beautiful and triumphant, on the opposite side.

'If you will not come with us,' said Desvoeux, calling to the people on the other side, 'we must go up to the Point without you. General Beau will, I am sure, take care of the Miss Fotheringhams.'

'A most wilful girl,' thought the General, 'and dull, but a fine jumper, and feet and ankles quite perfection.'

Maud, when she got across the stream, had pa.s.sed a moral Rubicon; she left propriety, prudence, and prudishness on the other side with the General and the Miss Fotheringhams.

Desvoeux was in the greatest glee at the result which had come about. 'I wish the General had tried and tumbled in,' he said, 'and got a ducking.'

'Oh,' cried Maud, 'what a dreadful man he is, with his shrugs and his "Ahs!" How lucky that you came to save me!'

'And you to save me,' said her companion; 'I was having a sad time of it with the Fotheringham girls. What a thing it is to have a deliverer!'

'But,' said Maud, 'I think the younger one is looking very pretty. You know you used to love her. What lovely hair!'

'Yes,' said the other. 'Hair

So young and yellow, crowning sanct.i.ty, And claiming solitude: can hair be false?'

'It can,' exclaimed Maud; 'Mrs. Blunt showed me two large coils, which had arrived from Douglas' in her last box from Europe. When one has a diamond tiara I suppose one must have hair to put it in, _cote qui cote_.'

'Mrs. Blunt and her eternal tiara!' cried Desvoeux; 'like the toad and adversity, ugly and venemous, she wears a precious jewel in her head.

But is not this lovely? Look at the rainbow in the foam and the deep green of the ferns beside it. Was it not worth a jump?'

'Was not _what_ worth a jump?' said Maud, with one of her pretty blushes.

'If only,' cried Desvoeux, 'there was somewhere we could jump to, where I could have you all for my very own! But see, here is the Speaking Rock; call out something now and see how it will answer you.'

'Hoop!' cried Maud, and 'Hoop!' answered the steep crag opposite, and Maud, in a mood to be pleased with everything, was quite delighted.

'Hoop, hie!' she cried again, and all the hillside seemed to echo to her joyful tones.

'See,' cried Desvoeux, 'you have waked the Genius of the Mountain. If you called long enough the nymphs would come and dance and crown you for a rural queen, the fairest that Arcadia ever saw!'

'Now,' said Maud, quite breathless with her calls, 'shout out something, Mr. Desvoeux, and see what the mountain nymphs will have to say to you.'

'No,' Desvoeux said sentimentally, 'the nymphs would answer nothing: my voice is too rough to please them. Besides I know by experience it is my fate to call and call, and rocks and other things just as hard will give me no response.'

'Indeed,' said Maud, 'I think they answer quite as much as is good for you.'

'Our echoes,' cried Desvoeux, turning suddenly upon her and speaking with a vehemence that was only half in play--

'Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever----'

'And ever and ever,' laughed Maud. 'Well, now, it is high time that they stopped growing for the present. Come, Mr. Desvoeux, let us get back before our dear friends have torn us quite to pieces.'

Maud came back in great spirits and made a public laugh at General Beau for his desertion of her.

'"The rocks are slippery, the water is deep!"' she cried, taking him off to his face with great success, '"I implore, I entreat, I command"; but I don't jump! O faithless, faithless General Beau!'

The General was not in the least disconcerted. 'Ah!' he said, in his usual mysterious way; and everybody felt that he could have jumped if he had chosen, but that he had some particular reason for not choosing to do so.

Then the party rea.s.sembled for tea and they played at games. Some one proposed 'What is my thought like?'

'Delightful!' cried Maud. 'General Beau, what is my thought like, pray?'

'Like?' said the General, quite unprepared for such sudden demands on his conversational powers, 'it is like yourself, no doubt.'

'Enough, enough!' cried Maud. 'Now, then, please say how wit, which is my word, and I are like each other?'

'Ah!' said the General, as if to imply that he mentally perceived the resemblance; 'because, because'----

'Because,' said Mrs. Vereker, 'you are both to "madness near allied."'

'Or because,' said Desvoeux, cutting in with great prompt.i.tude, '"true wit is nature to advantage dressed;" and so, I am sure, is Mrs. Sutton.'

'Very nice!' cried Maud, glowing with pleasure; 'now, General Beau, you must pay forfeit, you know. I will give you a bad one for deserting me so cruelly.'

'Forfeits!' said Desvoeux, 'spare us, spare us--they are too fatiguing.'

'Not a bit,' said Maud, 'you bow to what is wisest, and kneel to what is prettiest, and kiss what you love best.'

'Well, then,' said Desvoeux, kissing his hand sentimentally and blowing it into the air, 'there is a kiss for what I love best, wherever it may be.'

'Dear me,' said Mrs. Vereker, 'what a touching idea! There goes my kiss.'

'And,' cried Maud, laughing and kissing the tips of her pretty fingers, 'there goes mine! What a state the air will be in! But here comes Major Fenton with a plate of plumcake, which is what I love best; so my kiss is for that!'

'Happy plumcake!' said the Major, gallantly, 'to be loved, eaten and kissed by a mouth so fair.'