n--'_auld Robin Gray_'--mind you," he
says, with a disagreeable laugh. "It is _his_ business, but he does not
seem to see it, does he? ha! ha!"

"I _wish_!" cry I, passionately; then I stop myself. After all, he is
hardly himself to-night, poor Algy!

"By-the-by," he says, presently, with a wretchedly assumed air of
carelessness, "is it true--it is as well to come to the fountain-head at
once--is it true that _once_, some time in the dark ages,
he--he--thought fit to engage himself to, to _her_?" (with a fierce
accent on the last word).

A pain runs through my heart. Well, that is nothing new nowadays. He too
has heard it, then.

"I do not know!" I answer, faintly.

"What! he has not told you? _Kept it dark!_ eh?" (with the same hateful
laugh).

"He has kept nothing dark!" I answer, indignantly. "One day he began to
tell me something, and I stopped him! I would not hear; I did not want
to hear, I believe; I am sure that they are--only--only--old friends."

"_Old friends!_" he echoes, with a smile, in comparison of which our
host's satyr-leer seems pleasant and chaste. "_Old friends!_ you call
yourself a woman of the world" (indeed I call myself nothing of the
kind), "you call yourself a woman of the world, and believe _that_! They
looked like _old friends_ at dinner to-day, did not they? A little less
than kin, and more than kind! Ha! ha!"

CHAPTER XLIV.

Partridges are not General Parker's strong point, and the few he ever
had his nephew has already shot. Roger must, therefore, for one day
abstain from the turnip-ridges. To amuse us, however, and keep us all
sociably together, and bridge the yawning gulf between breakfast and
dinner, we are to be sent on an expedition. Not only an expedition, but
a picnic. This is perhaps a little risky in such a climate as ours, and
in a month so doubtfully hovering on the borders of winter as September;
but the sun is shining, and we therefore make up our minds, contrary to
all precedent, that he must necessarily go on shining.

Some ten miles away there is a spot whence one can see seven counties,
not to speak of the sea, a mountain or two, and some other trifles; and
thither Mr. Parker is kindly going to bowl us down on his coach.

A drive on a coach is always to me a most doubtful joy; the ascent,
labor; the drive itself, long anxiety and peril; the descent, agony, and
sometimes shame. However, that is neither here nor there. I am going. It
is still half an h