'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 reassembled 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."'