We had been down into the old, ruinous enclosure; had peeped in at the dark, choked-up casemates; and had gone round and come up on the edge of the broken embankment, which we were following along to where it sloped down safely again,—­when, just at the very middle and highest and most impossible point, down sat Miss Elizabeth among the stones, and declared she could neither go back nor forward.  She had been frightened to death all the way, and now her head was quite gone.  “No; nothing should persuade her; she never could get up on her feet again in that dreadful place.”  She laughed in the midst of it; but she was really frightened, and there she sat; Dakie went to her, and tried to help her up, and lead her on; but she would not be helped.  “What would come of it?” “She didn’t know; she supposed that was the end of her; she couldn’t do anything.”  “But, dear Miss Pennington,” says Dakie, “are you going to break short off with life, right here, and make a Lady Simon Stylites of yourself?” “For all she knew; she never could get down.”  I think we must have been there, waiting and coaxing, nearly half an hour, before she began to hitch along; for walk she wouldn’t, and she didn’t.  She had on a black Ernani dress, and a nice silk underskirt; and as she lifted herself along with her hands, hoist after hoist sidewise, of course the thin stuff dragged on the rocks and began to go to pieces.  By the time she came to where she could stand, she was a rebus of the Coliseum,—­“a noble wreck in ruinous perfection.”  She just had to tear off the long tatters, and roll them up in a bunch, and fling them over into a hollow, and throw the two or three breadths that were left over her arm, and walk home in her silk petticoat, itself much the sufferer from dust and fray, though we did all we could for her with pocket-handkerchiefs.

“What has happened to Miss Pennington?” said Mrs. General M——­, as we came up on the piazza.

“Nothing,” said Dakie, quite composed and proper, “only she got tired and sat down; and it was dusty,—­that was all.”  He bowed and went off, without so much as a glance of secret understanding.

“A joke has as many lives as a cat, here,” he told Pen and me, afterwards, “and that was too good not to keep to ourselves.”

Dear little mother and girls,—­I have told stories and described describes, and all to crowd out and leave to the last corner such a thing that Dakie Thayne wants to do!  We got to talking about Westover and last summer, and the pleasant old place, and all; and I couldn’t help telling him something about the worry.  I know I had no business to; and I am afraid I have made a snarl.  He says he would like to buy the place!  And he wanted to know if Uncle Stephen wouldn’t rent it of him if he did!  Just think of it,—­that boy!  I believe he really means to write to Chicago, to his guardian.  Of course it never came into my head when I told him; it wouldn’t at any rate, and I never think of his having such a quantity of money.  He seems just like—­as far as that goes—­any other boy.  What shall I do?  Do you believe he will?