“Yes, and then we shall never meet at the gardens, and never all come away at the same time, and my arrangements will be completely subverted, and everything will go wrong,” whined Mr. Crane. On this Harry ran up to hasten Alice, and Alice, who was attiring herself at express speed, was cross, and snubbed him out of the room, and he rejoined the company in the drawing-room with compressed lips and an angry flush on each cheek; and Arabella Crofton favoured him with a glance of intelligent pity, which, if it were intended to soothe his wounded spirit, failed in its effect most signally. After the lapse of an awful ten minutes, by the expiration of which period Mr. Crane was on the verge of tears, the culprit Alice made her appearance, looking very pretty, but not altogether as penitent as might have been desired; but as she said in a cheerful tone that she “really was quite distressed at having kept them all waiting,” we will hope she felt more than she allowed to appear. Then arose a debate and confusion of tongues and opinions as to how the party was to divide. Harry offered to drive the phaeton, Mr. Crane having privately hinted that such an arrangement would meet with his approval,--who was to accompany him? Harry suggested his own wife, meaning to treat her to a gentle reproof on the road for her want of consideration in having kept a whole party waiting merely to finish a silly duet with that boy Alfred Courtland. But Kate disapproved of this arrangement--perhaps because she had begun to suspect that the Coverdale couple did not always in “their little nest agree,” and had read in Harry’s flashing eyes warning of a perturbed spirit. Whether Alice’s conscience led her to the same result we do not pretend to decide, but for some reason she seconded her cousin until she discovered that by doing so Arabella Crofton would be her substitute, by which time the affair was settled beyond her power of altering. Her annoyance would have been sensibly diminished, however, if she could have known that the arrangement was if possible more distasteful to her husband than to herself, but unfortunately there was no _clairvoyant_ at hand to afford her this desirable intelligence. Having handed up his companion, and done all that his chivalrous nature taught him was due from a gentleman to _any_ woman entrusted to his care, and nothing farther, Harry gathered up his reins, placed himself by Miss Crofton’s side in the phaeton, and sitting bolt upright, drove off with an unapproachable expression of face, which indicated, as plainly as words could have done, his resolve not to advance beyond monosyllables until they reached Chiswick. But Harry was in such matters no match for the astute woman of the world who sat beside him. Apparently falling in with his humour she leaned back in the carriage, and the only sign she gave of her presence was an occasional sigh, which escaped her, as it appeared, involuntarily.