“I wish I could do something like that!” she exclaimed, earnestly.  “I used to wish that I could go out like Joan of Arc to do some great thing that would make people write books about me, and carve me on statues, and paint pictures and sing songs in my honah, but I believe that now I’d rathah do something bettah than ride off to battle on a prancin’ white chargah.  Thank you, Majah, for tellin’ me the story.  I’m goin’ for a walk now.  May I take Hero?”

A few minutes later the two were wandering along beside the water together, the Little Colonel dreaming day-dreams of valiant deeds that she might do some day, so that kings would send her a Gold Cross of Remembrance, and men would say with uncovered heads, as the old Major had done, “If America ever writes a woman’s name in her temple of fame, that one should be the name of Lloyd Sherman—­The Little Colonel!”

CHAPTER VI.

THE WONDER-BALL’S BEST GIFT

As the time drew near for them to move northward, Lloyd began counting the hours still left to her to spend with her new-found friends.

“Only two moah days, mothah,” she sighed “Only two moah times to go walking with Hero.  It seems to me that I can’t say good-bye and go away, and nevah see him again as long as I live!”

“He is going with us part of the way,” answered Mrs. Sherman.  “The Major told us last night that he had decided to visit his niece who lives at Zuerich.  We will stop first for a few days at a little town called Zug, beside a lake of the same name.  There is a William Tell chapel near there that the Major wants to show us, and he will go up the Rigi with us.  I think he dreads parting with you fully as much as you do from Hero.  His eyes follow every movement you make.  So many times in speaking of you he has called you Christine.”

“I know,” answered Lloyd, thoughtfully.  “He seems to mix me up with her in his thoughts, all the time.  He is so old I suppose he is absent-minded.  When I’m as old as he is, I won’t want to travel around as he does.  I’ll want to settle down in some comfortable place and stay there.”

“From what he said last night, I judge that this is the last time he expects to visit that part of Switzerland.  When he was a little boy he used to visit his grandmother, who lived near Zug.  The chalet where she lived is still standing, and he wants to see it once more, he said, before he dies.”

“He must know lots of stories about the place,” said Lloyd.

“He does.  He has tramped all over the mountain back of the town after wild strawberries, followed the peasants to the mowing, and gone to many a fete in the village.  We are fortunate to have such an interesting guide.”

“I wish that Betty could be with us to hear all the stories he tells us,” said Lloyd, beginning to look forward to the journey with more pleasure, now that she knew there was a prospect of being entertained by the Major.  Usually she grew tired of the confinement in the little railway carriages where there were no aisles to walk up and down in, and fidgeted and yawned and asked the time of day at every station.