"How awkward you are!" she exclaimed viciously, with a little stamp. "Let me get on alone!" And thereupon, to his astonishment and mortification, she pushed him aside, set her foot in the stirrup,--for she was very tall and could do it easily,--and was up in a flash. Lawrence, looking down at them from the edge of the woods, saw what happened, and so did Stebbins, the groom, who grinned in silence. He hated Brinsley, and it is a bad sign when a good servant hates his master's guest. Lawrence felt that in addition to scoring one in the game, he was avenged on his enemy for the latter's taunting invitation to ride. "I think I may count that, and mark two. I'm sure she did it on purpose," he said audibly to himself. Before Brinsley was mounted, Fanny was over the fence with her mare and waiting for him in the road. "Oh, come along!" she cried, "Don't be all day getting on!" "You needn't be so tremendously rough on a fellow," said Brinsley, as his horse landed in the road. "It wasn't my fault that I wasn't waiting for a runaway under the trees up there." "Yes it was! Everything's your fault," answered Fanny, emphatically. "No--you needn't play Orlando Furioso and make papa's old rocking-horse waltz like that. My mare's got to walk a mile, at least, for her nerves." It didn't require Brinsley's great natural penetration to tell him that Miss Fanny Trehearne was in the very worst of tempers--even to the point of unfairly calling her papa's sturdy Hungarian bad names. But he could not at all see why she should be so angry. It had certainly been her fault if he had failed to put her neatly in the saddle. But her ill-humour did not frighten him in the least, though he was very quiet for several minutes after she had last spoken. "It's not wildly gay to ride with people who don't talk," observed Fanny. "I was trying to think of something appropriate to say," answered Brinsley. "But you're in such an awful rage--" "Am I? I didn't know it. What makes you think so?" "What nerves you've got!" exclaimed Brinsley, in a tone of admiration. "I haven't any nerves at all." "I mean good nerves." "I tell you I haven't any nerves. Why do you talk about nerves? They're not amusing things to have, are they?" "Well--in point of humour--I didn't say they were." "I asked you to say something amusing, and you began talking about nerves," said Fanny, in explanation. "I'm not in luck to-day," said Brinsley, after a pause. "No--you're not," was the answer; but she did not vouchsafe him a glance. "I wish you'd like me," he said boldly. "I do--at a certain distance. You look well in the landscape--and you know it." "Upon my word!" Brinsley laughed roughly, and looked between his horse's ears. "Upon your word--what?" "I never had anything said to me quite equal to that, Miss Trehearne." "No? I'm surprised. Perhaps you haven't known the right sort of people. You must find the truth refreshing."