those ladies with red eyes when I go to wish Lady
Scapegrace good-bye, I would forego the pleasure of ever receiving a
letter or hearing a bit of news again!"

So I popped Cousin Amelia's epistle into my pocket without breaking
the seal, and put on my bonnet at once, that I might be ready to
start, and not keep Cousin John waiting.

The leavetaking was got over more easily than I expected. People
generally hustle one off in as great a hurry as the common decencies
of society would admit of, in order to shorten as much as possible the
unavoidable gene of parting. Sir Guy, staunch to his colours, was to
drive me back on the detested drag; but his great face fell several
inches when I expressed my determination to perform the journey _this_
time _inside_.

"I've bitted the team on purpose for you, Miss Kate," he exclaimed,
with one of his usual oaths, "and now you throw me over at the last
moment. Too bad; by all that's disappointing, it's too bad! Come now,
think better of it; put on my box-coat, and catch hold of 'em, there's
a good girl."

"_Inside_, or not at all, Sir Guy," was my answer; and I can be pretty
determined, too, when I choose.

"Then perhaps your maid would like to come on the box," urged the
Baronet, who seemed to have set his heart on the enjoyment of _some_
female society.

"Gertrude goes with me," I replied stoutly; for I thought Cousin John
looked pleased, and Sir Guy was at a nonplus.

"Awfully high temper," he muttered, as he took his reins and placed
his foot on the roller-bolt. "I like 'em saucy, I own, but this girl's
a regular vixen!"

Sir Guy was very much put out, and vented his annoyance on his
off-wheeler, "double-thonging" that unfortunate animal most
unmercifully the whole way to the station. He bade me farewell with a
coldness, and almost sulkiness, quite foreign to his usual demeanour,
and infinitely pleasanter to my feelings. Besides, I saw plainly that
the more I fell in the Baronet's good opinion, the higher I rose in
that of my _chaperone_; and by the time John and I were fairly settled
in a _coupe_, my cousin had got back to his old, frank, cordial
manner, and I took courage to break the seal of Cousin Amelia's
letter, and peruse that interesting document, regardless of all the
sarcasms and innuendoes it might probably contain.

What a jumble of incongruities it was! Long stories about the weather,
and the garden, and the farm, and all sorts of things which no one
knew