Imogen, as if unconscious of
difficulty, with a stride, a leap, a swift clutch of her firm white hand,
was at the top, smiling down at them and saying: "Now here the view is our
very loveliest. One looks down for miles."
"But--my dear Imogen--is there no other way, round it, perhaps?" Mrs. Potts
looked desperately into the thick underbrush on either side.
"No other way," said Imogen. "But you can manage it. This is only the
beginning,--there's some real climbing farther on. Put your foot where I
did--no, higher--near the little fern--your hand here, look, do you see?
Take a firm hold of that--then a good spring--and here you are."
Poor Mrs. Potts laid a faltering hand on the high ledge that was only a
first stage in the chamois-like feat, and Imogen saw unwilling
relinquishment in her eye.
"I don't see as I can do it," she murmured, relapsing, in her distress,
into a helpless vernacular.
"Oh, yes, this is nothing. Sir Basil will give you a push. I'll pull you
and he will push you," Imogen, with kindest solicitude, suggested.
"Oh, I don't see as I _can_," Mrs. Potts repeated, looking rather wild at
the vision of such a push. She didn't at all lend herself to pushes, and
yet, facing even the indignities of that method, she did, though faltering,
place herself in position; did lay a desperate hold of the high ledge,
place her small, fat, tightly buttoned foot high beside the fern; allow Sir
Basil, with a hand under each armpit, to kindly count "One-two-three--now
for it!"--did even, at the word of command, make a passionate jump, only to
lose hold, scrape lamentably down the surface of the rock, and collapse
into his arms.
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