tes, which was all I wanted; if you please, Flora dear, we must have
your cleverness to help us in a little difficulty."

"Indeed!" said Miss Leicester, colouring a little, as her cousin, in his
eagerness, seized her hand in both of his--"what scrape have you got
into now, Horace, and how can I possibly help you?"

"Oh, I want you to hit upon some plan for keeping that fellow Hurst here
after we are gone."

"Upon my word!"

"Stay; you don't know what I mean. I'll tell you why--if he drives home
to Oxford, he'll infallibly upset us; and drive he must if he goes home
with us, because, in fact, the team is his, and I drove them all the way
here."

"Then why, in the multitude of absurdities (which you Oxonians
perpetrate)--I beg your pardon, Mr Hawthorne--but why need you have come
out in a tandem at all, with a man who can't drive?"

"Simply, Flora, because I had no other way of coming at all."

"It was very absurd in us, Miss Leicester, I allow," said I, "but you
know what an attraction a steeple chase is, to your cousin especially;
and after having made up his mind to come--altogether, you see, it would
have been a disappointment"--(to all parties, I had a mind to add, but I
thought the balance was on my side without it.)

"After all," said Horace, "I shouldn't care a straw to run the chance,
as far as I am concerned. I dare say the horses will go home straight
enough, if he'll only let them: or if he wouldn't, I shouldn't mind
knocking him off the box at once--by accident; but Frank here is rather
particular, and I promised him I would not let Hurst drive. I thought
once, if we had dined by ourselves, of persuading him he was drunk, and
sending him home in a fly; but I am afraid, as matters stand, that plea
is hardly practicable."

"Could I persuade him to let you or Mr Hawthorne drive, do you think?"

Horace looked at her as if he thought, as I dare say he did, that his
cousin Flora could, if she were so minded, persuade a man to do any
thing; so I was compelled, somewhat at the expense of my reputation for
gallantry, to assure them both, that if Ulysses of old, among his
various arts and accomplishments, had piqued himself upon his
tandem-driving, his vanity would have stopped his ears effectually, and
the Syren might have sung herself hoarse before he would have given up
the reins.

"I'll give the boots half-a-crown to steal his hat," said Horace, "and
start while he is looking for it."

"Stay," said h