For, for some time now, Connie had been able to get up so early, that it was no unusual thing to have prayers in her room. "I am entirely independent of help from my family," returned Connie grandiloquently. "I am a woman of independent means," she added. "If you say another word, I will rise and leave the room." And she made a movement as if she would actually do as she had said. Seized with an involuntary terror, I rushed towards her, and the impertinent girl burst out laughing in my face--threw herself back on her pillows, and laughed delightedly. "Take care, papa," she said. "I carry a terrible club for rebellious people." Then, her mood changing, she added, as if to suppress the tears gathering in her eyes, "I am the queen--of luxury and self-will--and I won't have anybody come near me till dinner-time. I mean to enjoy myself." So the matter was settled, and we went out for our walk. Ethelwyn was not such a good walker as she had been; but even if she had retained the strength of her youth, we should not have got on much the better for it--so often did she and Wynnie stop to grub ferns out of the chinks and roots of the stone-walls. Now, I admire ferns as much as anybody--that is, not, I fear, so much as my wife and daughter, but quite enough notwithstanding--but I do not quite enjoy being pulled up like a fern at every turn. "Now, my dear, what is the use of stopping to torture that harmless vegetable?" I say, but say in vain. "It is much more beautiful where it is than it will be anywhere where you can put it. Besides, you know they never come to anything with you. They _always_ die." Thereupon my wife reminds me of this fern and that fern, gathered in such and such places, and now in such and such corners of the garden or the greenhouse, or under glass-shades in this or that room, of the very existence of which I am ignorant, whether from original inattention, or merely from forgetfulness, I do not know. Certainly, out of their own place I do not care much for them. At length, partly by the inducement I held out to them of a much greater variety of ferns where we were bound, I succeeded in getting them over the two miles in little more than two hours. After passing from the lanes into the fields, our way led downwards till we reached a very steep large slope, with a delightful southern exposure, and covered with the sweetest down-grasses. It was just the place to lie in, as on the edge of the earth, and look abroad upon the universe of air and floating worlds.