ullying me about Perry, and I'll tell you what I'll do--I'll let you
see me take a Sprint."

He drew back a step, and fixed his big blue eyes on her, with a look
which said, "You are a highly-favored woman, if ever there was one yet!"
Curiosity instantly took the leading place among the emotions of Mrs.
Glenarm. "What's a Sprint, Geoffrey?" she asked.

"A short run, to try me at the top of my speed. There ain't another
living soul in all England that I'd let see it but you. _Now_ am I a
brute?"

Mrs. Glenarm was conquered again, for the hundredth time at least. She
said, softly, "Oh, Geoffrey, if you could only be always like this!" Her
eyes lifted themselves admiringly to his. She took his arm again of her
own accord, and pressed it with a loving clasp. Geoffrey prophetically
felt the ten thousand a year in his pocket. "Do you really love me?"
whispered Mrs. Glenarm. "Don't I!" answered the hero. The peace was
made, and the two walked on again.

They passed through the plantation, and came out on some open ground,
rising and falling prettily, in little hillocks and hollows. The last
of the hillocks sloped down into a smooth level plain, with a fringe of
sheltering trees on its farther side--with a snug little stone cottage
among the trees--and with a smart little man, walking up and down before
the cottage, holding his hands behind him. The level plain was the
hero's exercising ground; the cottage was the hero's retreat; and the
smart little man was the hero's trainer.

If Mrs. Glenarm hated Perry, Perry (judging by appearances) was in
no danger of loving Mrs. Glenarm. As Geoffrey approached with his
companion, the trainer came to a stand-still, and stared silently at the
lady. The lady, on her side, declined to observe that any such person
as the trainer was then in existence, and present in bodily form on the
scene.

"How about time?" said Geoffrey.

Perry consulted an elaborate watch, constructed to mark time to the
fifth of a second, and answered Geoffrey, with his eye all the while on
Mrs. Glenarm.

"You've got five minutes to spare."

"Show me where you run, I'm dying to see it!" said the eager widow,
taking possession of Geoffrey's arm with both hands.

Geoffrey led her back to a place (marked by a sapling with a little
flag attached to it) at some short distance from the cottage. She glided
along by his side, with subtle undulations of movement which appeared
to complete the exasperation of Perry.