’Father!—­he wants to come to Europe.  When you’ve found a plan—­if we let him come and hitch up alongside of us somewhere—­why, he wouldn’t be any trouble!—­I’d see to that!  And you don’t know whether—­whether a son—­mightn’t suit you!  Why!—­you’ve never tried!’

He made an effort, and held her at arm’s length.

’I tell you, I can say nothing about it—­nothing—­till George has written to me!’

‘But he has—­this mail!’ And in triumph she hastily dragged a letter out of the little bag at her waist, and gave it him.  ’It came this afternoon, only I didn’t know if you might have it.’

He laughed excitedly, and took it.

An hour later Fenwick rose.  The day had grown cool.  A fresh breeze was blowing from the north down the fell-side.  He put his arm round Carrie as she stood beside him, kissed her, and in a gruff, unintelligible voice, murmured something that brought the tears again to her eyes.  Then he announced that he was going for a short walk.  Neither Phoebe nor Miss Anna were to be seen.  Carrie protested on the score of his health.

‘Nonsense!  The doctor said I might do what I felt I could do.’

’Then you must say good-bye to me.  For Miss Anna and I are going directly.’

Fenwick looked scared, but was soon reminded that Miss Anna was to drive the child that evening to Bowness, where Carrie was to be introduced to some old friends of Miss Anna’s and stay with them a couple of days.  He evidently did not like the prospect, but he made no audible protest against it, as he would perhaps have done a week before.

Carrie watched him go—­followed his figure with her eyes along the road.

’And I’m glad we’re off!’—­she said to herself, her small feet dancing—­’we’ve been cumbering this ground, Miss Anna and I—­a deal too long!’

He was soon nearly a mile from home; rejoicing strangely in his recovered power of movement, and in the freshness of the evening air.  He found himself on a hill above Elterwater, looking back on the lake, and on a wide range of hills beyond, clothed, in all their lower slopes, with the full leaf of June.  Wood rose above wood, in every gradation of tone and loveliness, creeping upwards through blue haze, till they suddenly lost hold on the bare peaks, which rose, augustly clear, into the upper sky.  The lake with its deep or glowing reflexions—­its smiling shore—­the smoke of its few houses—­lay below him; and between him and it, glistening sharply, in a sun-steeped magic, upon the blue and purple background of the hills and woods—­a wild cherry, in its full mantle of bridal white.

What tranquillity!—­what colour!—­what infinite variety of beauty!  His heart swelled within him.  Life of the body—­and life of the soul—­seemed to be flowing back upon him, lifting him on its wave, steeping him in its freshening strength.  ‘My God!’ he thought, remembering the sketch he had just made, and the mastery with which he had worked—­’if I am able to paint again!—­if I am!’