Beside her, in the seat she had taken when she escaped from Lady Motherwell, Sir Charles had already taken up his position. He was talking to her through his hard little black mustache--not that he said a great deal. He was a tall man, and she was seated in a low chair, with the usual billows of white on the carpet all round her, so that he could not even approach very near; and she had to look up at him and strain her ear when he spoke, if she wanted to hear--which was a trouble Sara did not choose to take. So she said, “What?” in her indifferent way, playing with her fan, and secretly doing all she could to extend the white billows round her; while he, poor man, bent forward at a right angle till he was extremely uncomfortable, and repeated his very trivial observations with a vain attempt to reach her ear. “I think I am growing deaf,” said Sara; “perhaps it was that dreadful frost--I don’t think I have ever got quite thawed yet. When I do, all you have been saying will peal out of the trumpet like Baron Munchausen, you know. So you didn’t go to the stables? Wasn’t that rather naughty? I am sure it was to the stables your mamma sent you when you went away.” “Tell you what, Miss Brownlow,” said Sir Charles, “you are making game of me.” “Oh, no,” said Sara; “or did you go to the gate and see such a pretty girl in the cottage opposite? I don’t know whether you would fall in love with her, but I have; I never saw any one look so sweet. She has such pretty dark little curls, and yet not curls--something prettier--and such eyes--” “Little women with black hair are frights,” said Sir Charles--“always thought so, and more than ever now.” “Why more than ever now?” said Sara, with the precision of contempt; and then she went on--“If you don’t care either for pretty horses or pretty girls, we shan’t know how to amuse you. Perhaps you are fond of reading; I think we have a good many nice books.” Sir Charles said something to his mustache, which was evidently an expletive of some kind. He was not the sort of man to swear by Jove, or even by George, much less by any thing more tangible; but still he did utter something in an inarticulate exclamatory way. “A man would be difficult to please if he didn’t get plenty to amuse him here,” was how it ended. “I’m not afraid--”