“Old Biddy knows I have got it,” cried Eoa, changing her humour: “and she patted me on the back, and said, ‘Begorra, thin, you be the cliver one; hould on to that same, me darlint, and weʼll bate every bit of her, yit; the purtiest feet and ancles to you, and the best back legs, more than iver she got, and now you bate her in the stalinʼ. And plase, Miss, rade yer ould Biddy every consuminʼ word on it. Mullygaslooce, but weʼve toorned her, this time, and thank Donats for it.’” Eoa dramatised Biddy so cleverly, even to the form of her countenance, and her peculiar manner of standing, that Amy, with all those griefs upon her, could not help laughing heartily. “Come along, I canʼt mope any longer; when I have jumped the brook nine times, you may say something to me. What do you think of a bathe, Amy? I am up for it, if you are—and our tablecloths for towels. Nobody comes here once in a year; and if they did, they would run away again. What a lovely deep pool! I can swim like a duck; and you like a stone, I suppose.” Amy, of course, would not hear of it, and her lively friend, having paddled with her naked feet in the water, and found it colder—oh, ever so much—than the tributaries of the Ganges, was not so very sorry (self–willed though being) to keep upon the dry land, only she must go to Queenʼs Mead, and Amy must come with her, and run the entire distance, to get away from trouble. Amy was light enough of foot, when her heart was light; but Eoa could “run round her,” as the sporting phrase is, and she gave herself the rein at will that lovely afternoon; as a high–mettled filly does, when she gets out of Piccadilly. And she chatted as fast as she walked all the time, hoping so to divert her friend from this new distress. “I should not be one bit surprised, if we saw that—Bob, here somewhere. We are getting near one of his favourite places—not that I know anything about it; and he is always away now in Mark Ash Wood, or Puckpits, looking out for the arrival of honey–buzzards, or for a merlinʼs nest. Oh, of course we shall not see him.” “Now, you know you will,” replied Amy, laughing at Eoaʼs clumsiness; “and you have brought me all this way for that very reason. Now, if we meet him, just leave him to me, and stay out of hearing. I will manage him so that he shall soon think you the best and the prettiest girl in the world.” “Well, I wish he would,” said Eoa, blushing beautifully; “wouldnʼt I torment him then?” “No doubt you would, and yourself as well. Now where do you think he will be?” “Oh, Amy, how can I possibly guess? But if I did guess at all, I should say there was just an atom of a chance of his being not far from the Queenʼs Mead.” “Suppose him to be there. What would bring him there? Not to see you, I should hope?” “As if he would go a yard for that! Oh no, he is come to look for—at least, perhaps he might, just possibly, I mean——”