to sink
beneath his feet? "Say that Miss Tickle may come. I should be nothing
without Miss Tickle. You cannot be so hard-hearted as that."

"I don't see what is the good of talking about Miss Tickle till we have
come to some settlement about the ponies. You say that you must have the
ponies. To tell you the truth, Miss Thoroughbung, I don't like any such
word as 'must.' And a good many things have occurred to me."

"What kind of things, deary?"

"I think you are inclined to be--gay--"

"Me! gay!"

"While I am sober, and perhaps a little grave in my manners of life. I
am thinking only of domestic happiness, while your mind is intent upon
social circles. I fear that you would look for your bliss abroad."

"In France or Germany?"

"When I say abroad, I mean out of your own house. There is perhaps some
discrepancy of taste of which I ought earlier to have taken cognizance."

"Nothing of the kind," said Miss Thoroughbung. "I am quite content to
live at home and do not want to go abroad, either to France nor yet to
any other English county. I should never ask for anything, unless it be
for a single month in London."

Here was a ground upon which he perhaps could make his stand. "Quite
impossible!" said Mr. Prosper.

"Or for a fortnight," said Miss Thoroughbung.

"I never go up to London except on business."

"But I might go alone, you know--with Miss Tickle. I shouldn't want to
drag you away. I have always been in the habit of having a few weeks in
London about the Exhibition time."

"I shouldn't wish to be left by my wife."

"Of course we could manage all that. We're not to settle every little
thing beforehand, and put it into the deeds. A precious sum we should
have to pay the lawyers!"

"It's as well we should understand each other."

"I think it pretty nearly is all settled that has to go into the deeds.
I thought I'd just run over, after seeing Mr. Barry, and give the final
touch. If you'll give way, dear, about Miss Tickle and the ponies, I'll
yield in everything else. Nothing, surely, can be fairer than that."

He knew that he was playing the hypocrite, and he knew also that it did
not become him as a gentleman to be false to a woman. He was aware that
from minute to minute, and almost from word to word, he was becoming
ever more and more averse to this match which he had proposed to
himself. And he knew that in honesty he ought to tell her that it was
so. It was not honest in him to endeavor to ge