led sorrow and
displeasure. "Well, don't be pettish about it; I 'm sure I thought it
very generous in me, considering--"

She looked round at this moment, and her large eyes were bent upon him
with a look which their very tears made passionately meaning.

"Considering what a neat finger you have on a young horse," said he. And
she turned abruptly away, and, as if to hide her emotion, spurred her
mare into a bounding canter.

"Take care, Charley, take care what you 're doing," said Linton, with a
look of consummate shrewdness.

Frobisher looked after her for a minute or two, and then seemed to drop
into a revery, for he made no reply whatever.

"Let the matter stop where it is," said Linton, quietly, as if replying
to some acknowledgment of the other; "let it stop there, I say, and one
of these days, when she marries,--as she unquestionably will do, through
papa Downie's means,--somebody of influence, she 'll be a steadfast,
warm friend, never forgetting, nor ever wishing to forget, her
childhood's companion. Go a little further, however, and you 'll just
have an equally determined enemy. I know a little of both sides of the
question," added he, meditatively, "and it needs slight reflection which
to prefer."

"How are you going to amuse us here, Mr. Linton?" said she, cantering up
at this moment; "for it seems to me, as old Lord Kilgoff says, that we
are like to have a very dull house. People are ordering dinner for their
own small parties as unsocially as though they were at the Crown Inn, at
Brighton."

"Yes, by the by," said Frobisher, "I want to ask you about that. Don't
you think it were better to dash a little bit of 'communism' through
your administration?"

"I intend to send in my resignation as premier, now that the head of the
State has arrived," said Linton, smiling dubiously.

"I perceive," said Frobisher, shrewdly, "you expect that the Government
will go to pieces, if you leave it."

"The truth is, Charley," said he, dropping his voice to a low whisper,
and leaning his hand on the horse's mane, "our friend Roland is rather
too far in the category 'savage' for long endurance; he grows capricious
and self-opinionated. The thin plating comes off, and shows the
buccaneer at every slight abrasion."

"What of that?" said Frobisher, languidly; "his book on Coutts' is
unexceptionable. Come, Tom, you are the only man here who has a head for
these things. Do exert yourself and set something a-going."