contend with so much idiocy in our local workmen. If I did
not stand by and see drain-pipes put in and connections made, I believe
the whole thing would go wrong."

"It must be very dreadful for you," exclaimed Lady Mabel.

"It must be intolerable!" cried Lord Mallow; "what, when the moments
are golden, when 'Love takes up the glass of Time, and turns it in his
glowing hands,' when 'Love takes up the harp of life, and smites on all
the chords with might,' you have to devote your morning to watching the
laying of drain-pipes and digging of sewers! I cannot imagine a more
afflicted man."

Lady Mabel saw the sneer, but her betrothed calmly ignored it.

"Of course it's a nuisance," he said carelessly; "but I had rather be
my own clerk of the works than have the whole thing botched. I thought
you were going to Wellbrook Abbey with the house party, Mabel?"

"I know every stone of the Abbey by heart. No, I have been dawdling
about the grounds all the afternoon. It is much too warm for riding or
driving."

Lady Mabel strangled an incipient yawn. She had not yawned once in all
her talk with Lord Mallow. Rorie stifled another, and Lord Mallow
walked up and down among the pine-needles, like a caged lion. It would
have been polite to leave the lovers to themselves, perhaps. They might
have family matters to discuss, settlements, wedding presents, Heaven
knows what. But Lord Mallow was not going to leave them alone. He was
in a savage humour, in which the petty rules and regulations of a
traditionary etiquette were as nothing to him. So he stayed, pacing
restlessly, with his hands in his pockets, and inwardly delighted at
the stupid spectacle presented by the affianced lovers, who had nothing
to say to each other, and were evidently bored to the last degree by
their own society.

"This is the deplorable result of trying to ferment the small beer of
cousinly affection into the Maronean wine of passionate love," thought
Lord Mallow. "Idiotic parents have imagined that these two people ought
to marry, because they were brought up together, and the little girl
took kindly to the little boy. What little girl does not take kindly to
anything in the shape of a boy, when they are both in the nursery?
Hence these tears."

"I am going to pour out mamma's tea," Lady Mabel said presently, keenly
sensible of the stupidity of her position. "Will you come, Roderick?
Mamma will be glad to know that you are alive. She was wondering about
y