nice 'squatty' slab--almost as smooth
as glass--an' shaped like a mud-turtle.
I wonder if there is a fairy underneath
it--lurking under the rim. Now--now
for the wishing cap!"

But before she could don Fortunatus'
cap by breaking a wee branch from a
dwarf cedar growing amid the crags and
wreathing it, like a green cottage bonnet,
around her head, she slipped upon the
wet moss girdling the stone where a tiny
spring bubbled, and almost pitched headlong
down the trail, at this point particularly
steep.

"Easy there, lassie! Ye dinna want to
mak' o' that auld flat slab a tombstone,
eh?" murmured Andrew, laying a great
hand upon her shoulder, with a little
smack of laughter upon his long, smooth-shaven
upper lip.

But immediately he winced as if his
own words hurt him, and Pemrose--herself
in an aching mood--knew what he
was thinking of, that grizzled chauffeur.

[[254]]

p253 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p254w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p255

v?