d?"

"I'm afraid I can't say, not exactly; it may be a month, or it might
only be a week, or again, it may be a year. I'm so dependent upon the
weather. So, if you're in any kind of a hurry, I couldn't advise you, as
a honest man, to wait for me."

"I will not wait a year!" she said fiercely. "You mock me with such
words. I tell you again that my forbearance will last but little
longer. More of this laggard love, and I will shame you before your
fellow-men as an ingrate and a dastard! I will; by my zone, I will!"

"Now, mum, you're allowing yourself to get excited," said Leander,
soothingly. "I wouldn't talk about it no more this evening; we shall do
no good. I can't arrange to go with you just yet, and there's an end of
it."

"You will find that that is not the end of it, clod-witted slave that
you are!"

"Now, don't call names; it's beneath you."

"Ay, indeed! for are not _you_ beneath me? But for very shame I will not
abandon what is justly mine; nor shall you, wily and persuasive
hairdresser though you be, withstand my sovereign will with impunity!"

"So you say, mum!" said Leander, with a touch of his native
impertinence.

"As I say, I shall act; but no more of this, or you will anger me before
the time. Let me depart."

"I'm not hindering you," he said; but she did not remain long enough to
resent his words. He sat down with a groan. "Whatever will become of
me?" he soliloquized dismally. "She gets more pressing every evening,
and she's been taking to threatening dreadful of late.... If the Count
and that Braddle ever come back now, it won't be to take her off my
hands; it'll more likely be to have my life for letting them into such a
trap. They'll think it was some trick of mine, I shouldn't wonder....
And to-morrow's Sunday, and I've got to dine with aunt, and meet Matilda
and her ma. A pretty state of mind I'm in for going out to dinner, after
the awful week I've had of it! But there'll be some comfort in seeing my
darling Tillie again; _she_ ain't a statue, bless her!"

"As for you, mum," he said to the unconscious statue, "I'm going to lock
you up in your old quarters, where you can't get out and do mischief. I
do think I'm entitled to have my Sunday quiet."

After which he contrived to toil upstairs with the image, not without
considerable labour and frequent halts to recover his breath; for
although, as we have already noted, the marble, after being infused with
life, seemed to lose something