him to desperation, while Horace got
the steam up faster than he, with his very languid motor powers, often
did, being accustomed to be spared the trouble and have all the love
made to him--an indolence in which the St. Aubyn, who knows how to keep
a man well up to hand, never indulged him.

"Do have some pity on me," I heard Cos murmuring, as she stroked a great
brute of his, with a head like a fiddle-case, and no action at all. "I
assure you, Miss St. Aubyn, you make me wretched. I'd die for you
to-morrow if I only saw how, and yet you take no more notice of me
sometimes than if I were that colt."

Cecil glanced at him with a smile that would have driven Cos distracted
if he'd been in for it as deep as he pretended.

"I don't see that you are much out of condition, Sir Horace, but if you
have any particular fancy to suicide, the horse-pond will accommodate
you at a moment's notice; only don't do it till after our play, because
I have set my heart on that suit of Milan armor. Pray don't look so
plaintive. If it will make you any happier, I am going for a walk, and
you may come too. Blanche, dear, which way is it to the plantations?"

Now poor Horace hated a walk on a frosty morning as cordially as
anything, being altogether averse to any natural exercise: but he was
sworn to the St. Aubyn, and Blanche and I, dropping behind them, he had
a good hour of her fascinations to himself. I do not know whether he
improved the occasion, but Cecil at luncheon looked tired and teased. I
should think, after Syd's graphic epigrammatic talk, the baronet's
lisped nonsense must have been rather trying, especially as Cecil has a
strong leaning to intellect.

Vivian didn't appear at luncheon; he was gone rabbit-shooting with the
other fellows, and I should have been with them if I had not thought
lounging in the drawing-room, reading "Clytemnestra" to Blanche, with
many pauses, the greater fun of the two. I am keen about sport, too; but
ever since, at the age of ten, I conceived a romantic passion for my
mother's lady's-maid--a tall and stately young lady, who eventually
married a retail tea-dealer--I have thought the beaux yeux the best of
all games.

"Mrs. Vivian, Blanche and Helena and I want to be very useful, if you
will let us," said Cecil, one morning. She was always soft and playful
with that gentlest of all women, Syd's mother. "What do you smile in
that incredulous way for? We _can_ be extraordinarily industrious: the
st