, reddening a little at my own simplicity, I go on,
hurriedly: "But he is such a boy!--younger than _you_--young enough to
be her _son_--it _can_ be only out of good-nature that she takes notice
of him."

"Yes--true--out of good-nature!" he echoes, nodding, smiling, and
speaking with that surface-assent which conveys to the hearer no
impression less than acquiescence.

"Boys are not much in her way, either," he pursues, carelessly;
"generally she prefers such as are of _riper_ years--_much_ riper!"

"How spiteful you are!" I say, glad to give my chafed soul vent in
words, and looking at him with that full, cold directness which one can
employ only toward such as are absolutely indifferent to one. "How she
_must_ have snubbed you!"

For an instant, he hesitates; then--

"Yes," he says, smiling still, though his face has whitened, and a
wrathy red light has come into his deep eyes; "in the pre-Huntley era, I
laid my heart at her feet--by-the-way, I must have been in petticoats at
the time--and she kicked it away, as she had, no doubt, done--_others_."

The camel's backbone is broken. This last innuendo--in weight a
straw--has done it. I speak never a word; but I rise up hastily, and,
letting my novel fall heavily prone on the pit of its stomach at the
punt-bottom, I take a flying leap to shore--_toward_ shore, I should
rather say--for I am never a good jumper--Tou Tou's lean spider-legs can
always outstride me--and now I fall an inch or two short, and draw one
leg out booted with river-mud. But I pay no heed. I hurry on, pushing
through the brambles, and leaving a piece of my gown on each. Before I
have gone five yards--his length of limb and freedom from petticoats
giving him the advantage over me--he overtakes me.

"What _has_ happened? at this rate you will not have much gown left by
the time you reach the house."

To my excited ears, there seems to be a suspicion of laughter in his
voice. I disdain to answer. The path we are pursuing is not the regular
one; it is a short cut through the wood. At its widest it is very
narrow; and, a little ahead of us, a bramble has thrown a strong arm
right across it, making a thorny arch, and forbidding passage. By a
quick movement, Mr. Musgrave gets in advance of me, and, turning round,
faces me at this defile.

"What _has_ happened?"

Still I remain stubbornly silent.

"We are not going to fight, at this time of day, such old friends as we
are?"

The red-anger light