“I was wondering how _you_ would get home,” said the young lady very innocently after a pause. “Your poor horse looked so very tired; but, then, he carried you famously. Papa and I knew you by your cap—didn’t we, Papa?”
Papa, who had now come up, corroborated his daughter; but the Reverend was somewhat abstracted and unobservant. He was not quite satisfied with the way his horse had carried him. He doubted whether the animal had pace. He doubted whether he had blood. He doubted whether he had courage. In truth, he was thinking just then whether he hadn’t better sell him to Mr. Sawyer.
That worthy was recovering his lost ground, by expressing many tender hopes that Miss Dove was not very tired. “She had had such a long day; and it was so wet for a lady to be out; and how would she ever get home all that way into Leicestershire?”
“Oh, we have a carriage at Harborough,” answered the fair object of all these anxieties; “and I don’t mind being late half so much as Papa does. I do so like being out at night. Do you know, though I am so fond of riding, I am rather _romantic_, Mr. Sawyer?”
“Oh, indeed! Yes, of course,” rejoined our friend, seeing another opening, but not getting at it quite so readily as if it had been in a bullfinch. “It’s very pleasant sometimes, particularly in the summer; and horses always go best at night. But, there’s no moon now,” he added, looking wistfully first at the heavens, and then, as far as the darkness would permit, in his companion’s face.
“I’m certain you’re a great quiz,” answered Miss Dove to this harmless observation. “I told Mamma I was quite afraid of you, the day you came to luncheon at the Rectory. I dare say you think us all wild savages here, compared with what people are in your own country. By the bye, your country place is somewhere near London, I think you said?”
Mr. Sawyer did not remember saying anything of the kind, but he looked insinuating, which he need not have done, as it was so dark, and replied,
“Forty minutes by rail. I can run up, and do my shopping, and back again, between luncheon and dinner. I’m only half-a-mile from a station.”
Then he had a country place. So far, so good. In discussing him with Mamma, the latter had inclined to think _not_, but Miss Dove held strongly to her own opinion. She knew the country gentleman’s cut, she said; and in this instance she was right.