"Percivale," I said, forgetting the proprieties in the affected humour of being angry with him, so glad was I that we had her at length on the mount of glory, "why did you go on walking like a castle, and pay no heed to me?" "You didn't speak, did you, Mr. Walton," he returned, with just a shadow of solicitude in the question. "No. Of course not," I rejoined. "O, then," he returned, in a tone of relief, "how could I? You were my captain: how could I give in so long as you were holding on?" I am afraid the _Percivale_, without the _Mister_, came again and again after this, though I pulled myself up for it as often as I caught myself. "Now, papa!" said Connie from the grass. "Not yet, my dear. Wait till your mamma and Wynnie come. Let us go and meet them, Mr. Percivale." "O yes, do, papa. Leave me alone here without knowing where I am or what kind of a place I am in. I should like to know how it feels. I have never been alone in all my life." "Very well, my dear," I said; and Percivale and I left her alone in the ruins. We found Ethelwyn toiling up with Wynnie helping her all she could. "Dear Harry," she said, "how could you think of bringing Connie up such an awful place? I wonder you dared to do it." "It's done you see, wife," I answered, "thanks to Mr. Percivale, who has nearly torn the breath out of me. But now we must get you up, and you will say that to see Connie's delight, not to mention your own, is quite wages for the labour." "Isn't she afraid to find herself so high up?" "She knows nothing about it yet." "You do not mean you have left the child there with her eyes tied up." "To be sure. We could not uncover them before you came. It would spoil half the pleasure." "Do let us make haste then. It is surely dangerous to leave her so." "Not in the least; but she must be getting tired of the darkness. Take my arm now." "Don't you think Mrs. Walton had better take my arm," said Percivale, "and then you can put your hand on her back, and help her a little that way." We tried the plan, found it a good one, and soon reached the top. The moment our eyes fell upon Connie, we could see that she had found the place neither fearful nor lonely. The sweetest ghost of a smile hovered on her pale face, which shone in the shadow of the old gateway of the keep, with light from within her own sunny soul. She lay in such still expectation, that you would have thought she had just fallen asleep after receiving an answer to a prayer, reminding me of a little-known sonnet of Wordsworth's, in which he describes as the type of Death-- "the face of one Sleeping alone within a mossy cave With her face up to heaven; that seemed to have Pleasing remembrance of a thought foregone; A lovely beauty in a summer grave." [Footnote: _Miscellaneous Sonnets_, part i.28.] But she heard our steps, and her face awoke. "Is mamma come?" "Yes, my darling. I am here," said her mother. "How do you feel?"