think he is rather--"

Barbara, however, is diffident of her own opinion, and repeats my
question to her lover.

He shrugs his shoulders.

"Is he? I have not noticed him; nothing more likely; last time I saw him
he was _flying_! It was in India at a great pig-sticking meeting, and
after dinner he got up to the top of a big mango-tree, and tried to
_fly_! Of course he fell down, but he was so drunk that he was not in
the least hurt."

Mr. Musgrave seems to think this an amusing anecdote; but we do not.

"Why do not _you_ drive?" I ask, contrary to all my resolutions
addressing my future brother-in-law, and indeed forgetting in my alarm
that I had ever made such. I am reminded of it, however, by the look of
gratification that flashes--for only one moment and is gone--but still
flashes into the depths of his great dark eyes.

"It is so likely that he would let me!" he says, laughing.

"I would not mind so much if I were at the _back_!" I say, piteously,
turning to Barbara. "At the back one does not know what is coming, but
on the box one sees whatever is happening."

"That is rather an advantage I think," she answers, laughing. "I do not
mind; I will go on the box."

"Will you?" say I, eagerly. "_Do!_ and I will take care of the old
general at the back."

So it is settled. We are on the point of starting now. Mr. Parker is up
and is already beginning to struggle with the hopeless muddle of his
reins. I think we have perhaps done him an injustice; at all events, his
condition is not at all what it must have been when he mounted the
mango. Algy's morosity has returned tenfold, and he is performing the
evolution familiarly known as "pulling your nose to vex your face." That
is to say, he is standing about in the pouring rain utterly unprotected
from it. He entirely declines to put on any mackintosh or overcoat. Why
he does this, or how it punishes Mrs. Huntley, I cannot say, but so it
is.

We are off at last. I, in accordance with my wishes, up at the back,
facing the grooms; but not at all in accordance with my wishes, Mr.
Musgrave, and not the old host, is my companion.

"This is all wrong!" I cry, with vexed abruptness, as I see who it is
that is climbing after me. "Where is the general? We settled that he--"

"I am afraid you will have to put up with me!" interrupts Musgrave,
coldly, with that angry and mortified darkening of the whole face, and
sudden contraction of the eye-balls that I used so well to k