Even more
than thirty she must be."
He removed his feet from their elevation, and carefully arranged a
different scaffolding out of the materials before him, by placing
a cricket on the table, and his feet on the cricket. To do this
effectually and properly required the removal of the four pies, and the
displacement of the cold turkey.
But Swan was mentally removing far greater and more serious
difficulties. By the time he had asked himself one or two questions, and
had answered them, such as, "Whether, all the conditions being changed,
I am to be held to my promise?" and the like, he had placed one foot
carefully up. Then, before conscience had time to trip him up, the other
foot followed, and he found himself firmly posted.
"I will write a note to-morrow,--put it into the post-office----No,
that won't do; in these places, nobody goes to the post-office once a
week;--I'll send a note to the house."
Here he warmed up.
"A note, asking her to meet me under the great pear-tree, as we
met----It is, by Jove! just fifteen years to-morrow night since I left
Walton! That's good! it will help on some"----
The little maid here interrupted his meditations by coming for the
relics of the supper; and Swan, weary with unwonted thought, dropped
the paper curtains, and plunged, body and soul, into fifty pounds of
live-geese feathers.
CHAPTER VI.
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