ancy."

"An hour, then?" say I, lifting a lengthened countenance wistfully to
his; "people may do a good deal in an hour, may not they?"

"Had not we better be on the safe side, and say an hour and a half?"
suggests he, but somewhat apprehensively--or I imagine so. "I shall be
sure not to keep you a minute then--I do not relish the notion of my
wife's tramping up and down this muddy road all by herself."

"And I do not relish the notion of my husband--" return I, beginning to
speak very fast, and then suddenly breaking off--"Well, good-by!"

"Say, good-by, Roger," cries he, catching my hand in detention, as I
turn away. "Nancy, if you knew how fond I have grown of my own name! In
despite of Tichborne, I think it _lovely_."

I laugh.

"Good-by, _Roger_!"

He has opened the gate, and turned in. I watch him, as he walks with
long, quick steps, up the little, trim swept drive. As I follow him with
my eyes, a devil enters into me. I cry--

"Roger!"

He turns at once.

"Ask her to show you Algy's bracelet," I say, with an awkward laugh; and
then, thoroughly afraid of the effect of my bomb-shell, and not daring
to see what sort it is, I turn and run quickly away.

The end of the hour and a half finds me punctually peering through the
bars again. Well, I am first at the rendezvous. This, perhaps, is not
very surprising, as I have not given him one moment's law. For the first
five minutes, I am very fairly happy and content. The lark is still
fluttering in strong rapture up in the heights of the sky; and for these
five minutes I listen to him, soothed and hallowed. But, after they are
past, it is different. God's bird may be silent, as far as I am
concerned: not a verse more of his clear psalm do I hear. An uneasy
devil of jealousy has entered into me, and stopped my ears. I take hold
of the bars of the gate, and peer through, as far as my head will go:
then I open it, and, stealing on tiptoe up the drive a little way, to
the first corner, look warily round it. Not a sign of him! Not a sound!
Not even a whisper of air to rustle the glistening laurel-leaves, or
stir the flat laurestine-sprays.

I return to the road, and inculcate patience on myself. Why may not I
take a lesson in easy-mindedness from Vick? Was not it Hartley Coleridge
who suggested that perhaps dogs have a language of smell; and that what
to us is a noisome smell, is to them a beautiful poem? If so, Vick is
searching for lyrics and epics in the dit