appeal is addressed to deaf ears. I remain sitting on
the wall-top, trying to look as if I did not mind, while grave
misgivings possess my soul as to the extent of strong boot and ankle
that my unusual situation leaves visible. Once the desperate idea of
jumping presents itself to my mind, but the ground looks so distant, and
the height so great, that my heart fails me.

From my watch-tower I trace the progress of Sir Roger between the
fruit-trees. As yet, he has not seen me. Perhaps he will turn into
another walk, and leave the garden by an opposite door, I remaining
undiscovered. No! he is coming toward me. He is walking slowly along, a
cigar in his mouth, and his eyes on the ground, evidently in deep
meditation. Perhaps he will pass me without looking up. Nearer and
nearer he comes, I hold my breath, and sit as still as stone, when, as
ill-luck will have it, just as he is approaching quite close to me,
utterly innocent of my proximity, a nasty, teasing tickle visits my
nose, and I sneeze loudly and irrepressibly. Atcha! atcha! He starts,
and not perceiving at first whence comes the unexpected sound, looks
about him in a bewildered way. Then his eyes turn toward the wall. Hope
and fear are alike at an end. I am discovered. Like Angelina, I--

.... "stand confessed,
A maid in all my charms."

"How--on--earth--did you get up there?" he asks, in an accent of slow
and marked astonishment, not unmixed with admiration.

As he speaks, he throws away his cigar, and takes his hat off.

"How on earth am I to get down again? is more to the purpose," I answer,
bluntly.

"I could not have believed that any thing but a cat could have been so
agile," he says, beginning to laugh. "Would you mind telling me how
_did_ you get up?"

"By the ladder," reply I, laconically, reddening, and, under the
influence of that same insupportable doubt concerning my ankles, trying
to tuck away my legs under me, a manoeuvre which all but succeeds in
toppling me over.

"The _ladder_!" (looking round). "Are you quite sure? Then where has it
disappeared to?"

"I said something that vexed Bobby," reply I, driven to the humiliating
explanation, "and he went off with it. Never mind! once I am down, I
will be even with him!"

He looks entertained.

"What will you do? What will you say? Will you make use of the same
excellently terse expression that you applied to me last night?"

"I should not wonder," reply I, bursting out into unco