t?"

"Begin."

"Begin what?"

"Amusing me." And she made herself look sullen and unamusable all over.

"I will try," said Riviere. "I'll tell you what they say of you: that
you are too young to love."

"So I am, much."

"No, no, no! I made a mistake. I mean too young to be loved."

"Oh, I am not too young for that, not a bit."

This point settled, she suggested that, if he could not amuse her, he
had better do THE NEXT BEST THING, and that was, talk sense.

"I think I had better not talk at all," said he, "for I am no match
for such a nimble tongue. And then you are so remorseless. I'll hold my
tongue, and make a sketch of this magnificent oak."

"Ay, do: draw it as it appeared on a late occasion: with two ladies
flying out of it, and you rooted with dismay."

"There is no need; that scene is engraved."

"Where? in all the shops?"

"No; on all our memories."

"Not on mine; not on mine. How terrified you were--ha, ha! and how
terrified we should have been if you had not. Listen: once upon a
time--don't be alarmed: it was long after Noah--a frightened hare ran by
a pond; the frogs splashed in the water, smit with awe. Then she said,
'Ah ha! there are people in the world I frighten in my turn; I am the
thunderbolt of war.' Excuse my quoting La Fontaine: I am not in 'Charles
the Twelfth of Sweden' yet. I am but a child."

"And it's a great mercy, for when you grow up, you will be too much
for me, that is evident. Come, then, Mademoiselle the Quizzer, come and
adorn my sketch."

"Monsieur, shall I make you a confession? You will not be angry: I could
not support your displeasure. I have a strange inclination to walk
up and down this terrace while you go and draw that tree in the
Pleasaunce."

"Resist that inclination; perhaps it will fly from you."

"No; you fly from me, and draw. I will rejoin you in a few minutes."

"Thank you, I'm not so stupid. You will step indoors directly."

"Do you doubt my word, sir?" asked she haughtily.

He had learned to obey all her caprices; so he went and placed himself
on the west side of the oak and took out his sketch-book, and worked
zealously and rapidly. He had done the outlines of the tree and was
finishing in detail a part of the huge trunk, when his eyes were
suddenly dazzled: in the middle of the rugged bark, deformed here and
there with great wart-like bosses, and wrinkled, seamed, and ploughed
all over with age, burst a bit of variegated color; bright as