"Allen, Grant - Miss Cayley's Adventures 05 - The Adenture of the Impromptu Mountaineer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Grant)

murmured. 'I will try to be poor---penniless,
hunted, friendless. To win you I will try. And
when that day arrives, I shall come to claim you.'

We sat for an hour and had a delicious talk--
about nothing. But we understood each other. Only
that artificial barrier divided us. At the end of
the hour, I heard Elsie coming back by judiciously
slow stages from the kitchen to the living-room,
through six feet of passage, discoursing audibly to
Ursula all the way, with a tardiness that did
honour to her heart and her understanding. Dear,
kind little Elsie! I believe she had never a tiny
romance of her own; yet her sympathy for others was
sweet to look upon.

We lunched at a small deal table in the veranda.
Around us rose the pinnacles. The scent of pines
and moist moss was in the air. Elsie had arranged
the flowers, and got ready the omelette, and cooked
the chicken cutlets, and prepared the junket. 'I
never thought I could do it alone without you,
Brownie; but I tried, and it all came right by
magic, somehow.' We laughed and talked
incessantly. Harold was in excellent cue; and
Elsie took to him. A livelier or merrier table
there wasn't in the twenty-two Cantons that day
than ours, under the sapphire sky, looking out on
the sun-smitten snows of the Jungfrau.

After lunch, Harold begged hard to be allowed to
stop for tea. I had misgivings, but I gave way--he
was such good company. One may as well be hanged
for a sheep as a lamb, says the wisdom of our
ancestors: and, after all, Mrs. Grundy was only
represented here by Elsie, the gentlest and least
censorious of her daughters. So he stopped and
chatted till four; when I made tea and insisted on
dismissing him. He meant to take the rough
mountain path over the screes from Lungern to
Meiringen, which ran right behind the chalet. I
feared lest he might be belated, and urged him to
hurry.

'Thanks, I'm happier here,' he answered.

I was sternness itself. 'You promised me!' I
said, in a reproachful voice.

He rose instantly, and bowed. 'Your will is law