hand. "I would drive you myself, if I could, and if--" (almost humbly)
"if it would not bore you; but you see--" (rather slowly) "about the
carriage, she--she _asked_ me, and one does not like to say 'No' to such
an old friend!"

_Old friend!_ At the phrase, Algy's sneering white face rises before my
mind's eye.

"Will you?" he repeats, looking pleadingly at me, with the gray darkness
of his eyes.

"No, I will not!" I reply, resolutely, and still with that unmirthful
mirth; "what ever else I may be, I will not be a _spoil-sport_!"

"A _spoil-sport_!" he echoes, passionately, while his face darkens, and
hardens with impatient anger; "good God! will you _never_ understand?"

Then he hastily leaves the room. And so it comes to pass that, half an
hour later, I am crawling up with a sick heart to the box-seat,
piteously calling on all around me to hold down my garments during my
ascent. The grooms have let go the horses' heads, and have climbed up in
dapper lightness at the back: we are through the first gate! Bah! that
was a near shave of the post; yes, we are off, off for a long day's
pleasuring! The very thought is enough to put any one in low spirits, is
not it?

Barbara and Musgrave are behind us; and at the back, our old host and
Algy. The two latter are, I think, specially likely to enjoy themselves;
as the raw morning air has got down the old gentleman's throat, and he
is coughing like a wheezy old squirrel; and Algy is in a dumb frenzy. I
am no great judge of coachmanship, but we have not gone a quarter of a
mile, before it is borne in on my mind that Mr. Parker has about as much
idea of driving as a tomcat. The team do what is good in their eyes; we
must throw ourselves on their clemency and discretion, for clearly our
only hope is in them. He has not an idea of keeping them together; they
are all over the place; the wheelers' reins are all loose on their
backs. We seem to have an irresistible tendency toward bordering to the
right which keeps us hovering over the ditch. However, fortunately, the
road is very broad--one of the old coach-roads--and the vehicles we meet
are few and anxious to get out of our way. Such as they are, I will do
ourselves the justice to say that we try our best to run down each and
all of them.

It is September, as I have before said. The leaves are still all green,
only a stray bramble reddening here and there; but most of the midsummer
hedge-row peoples are gathered to their res