You
had best steer wide of Sir Lupus until he has breakfasted."
"I've a mind to sleep," I said, guiltily.
"I think it would be pleasant to ride together. Will you?" she asked;
then, laughing, she said, frankly, "Since you have come I do nothing but
follow you.... It is long since I have had a young companion, ... and,
when I think that you are to leave us, it spurs me to lose no moment
that I shall regret when you are gone."
No shyness marred the pretty declaration of her friendship, and it
touched me the more keenly perhaps. The confidence in her eyes, lifted
so sweetly, waked the best in me; and if my response was stumbling, it
was eager and warm, and seemed to please her.
"Tulip! Tulip!" she cried, "I want my dinner! Now!" And to me, "We will
eat what they give us; I shall dress in my buckskins and we will ride
the boundary and register the signs, and Sir Lupus and the others can
meet us at Sir George Covert's pleasure-house on the Vlaie. Does it
please you, Cousin George?"
I looked into her bright eyes and said that it pleased me more than I
dared say, and she laughed and ran up-stairs, calling back to me that I
should order our horses and tell Cato to tell Tulip to fetch meat and
claret to the gun-room.
I whistled a small, black stable lad and bade him bring our mounts to
the porch, then wandered at random down the hallway, following my nose,
which scented the kitchen, until I came to a closed door.
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