a glimpse of his face, he looked so delightfully
miserable," added she, with a merry laugh. After a moment's pause she
continued--"I'm afraid Mr. Vernor will think I am lost, if he should
happen to inquire after me, and I'm not forthcoming".

"Surely," said I, "he can never be so unreasonable as to blame you for
such a trifle as remaining five minutes too long. Does he expect you to
be a nun because he lives in a priory?"

"Almost, I really think," was the reply; "and now, good-bye, Mr.
Fairlegh," she continued--"I shall feel ~154~~happier since I have been
able to explain to you that I am not quite a monster of ingratitude."

"If that is the case, I am bound to rejoice in it also," answered I,
"though I would fain convince you that the explanation was not required."

Her only reply to this was an incredulous shake of the head; and, once
more wishing me good-morning, she tripped along the path; and, when
I turned to look again, her graceful figure had disappeared among the
trees.

With a flushed brow and beating heart (gentle reader, I was barely
twenty) I hastened to rejoin my companion, who, as might be expected,
was not in the most amiable humour imaginable, having had to restrain
the impatience of two fiery horses for a space of time nearly
approaching a quarter of an hour.

"Really, Lawless," I began, "I am quite ashamed." "Oh, you are, are
you?" was the rejoinder. "I should rather think you ought to be, too.
But it's always the way with you fellows who pretend to be steady and
moral, and all that sort of thing: when you do find a chance of getting
into mischief, you're worse a great deal than a man like myself, for
instance, who, without being bothered with any particular principles of
any kind, has what I call a general sense of fitness and propriety, and
does his dissipation sensibly and correctly. But to go tearing off like
a lunatic after the first petticoat you see fluttering among the
bushes in a gentleman's park, and leaving your friend to hold in two
thorough-bred peppery devils, that are enough to pull a man's arms off,
for above a quarter of an hour, it's too bad a great deal. Why, just
before you came, I fully expected when that mare was plunging about on
her hind legs----"

"How lovely she looked!" interrupted I, thinking aloud.

"You thought so, did you?" rejoined Lawless; "I wish you'd just had to
hold her; her mouth's as hard----"

"Her mouth is perfect," replied I emphatically; "quite per