embroidering thread went noiselessly in and out. Bees hummed
and flitted about the honeysuckle vines; there was a soft, sweet,
luxurious atmosphere to the senses and to the mind. This went on for a
while.

'Mr. Pitt,' said Miss Betty, 'you are giving me no help at all.'

He brought himself and his attention round to her at once, and asked
how he could be of service.

'Your mother,' began Miss Betty, stitching away, 'has given me a
commission concerning you. She desires me to see to it that _ennui_
does not creep upon you during your vacation in this unexciting place.
How do I know but it is creeping upon you already? and you give me no
chance to drive it away.'

Pitt laughed a little. 'I was never attacked by _ennui_ in my life,' he
said.

'So you do not want my services!'

'Not to fight an enemy that is nowhere in sight. Perhaps he is your
enemy, and I might be helpful in another way.'

It occurred to him that _he_ had been charged to make Miss Frere's
sojourn in Seaforth pleasant; and some vague sense of what this mutual
charge might mean dawned upon him, with a rising light of amusement.

'I don't know!' said the young lady. 'You did once propose a drive. If
you would propose it again, perhaps I would go. We cannot help its
being hot?'

So they went for a drive. The roads were capital, the evening was
lovely, the horses went well, and the phaeton was comfortable; if that
were not enough, it was all. Miss Frere bore it for a while patiently.

'Do you dislike talking?' she asked at length meekly, when a soft bit
of road and the slow movement of the horses gave her a good opportunity.

'I? Not at all!' said Pitt, rousing himself as out of a muse.

'Then I wish you would talk. Mrs. Dallas desires that I should
entertain you; and how am I to do that unless I know you better?'

'So you think people's characters come out in talking?'

'If not their characters, at least something of what is in their
heads--what they know--and don't know; what they can talk about, in
short.'

'I do not know anything--to talk about.'

'Oh, fie, Mr. Dallas! you who have been to Oxford and London. Tell me,
what is London like? An overgrown New York, I suppose.'

'No, neither. "Overgrown" means grown beyond strength or usefulness.
London is large, but not overgrown, in any sense.'

'Well, like New York, only larger?'

'No more than a mushroom is like a great old oak. London is like that;
an old oak, gnarled and twisted and