The pony was off with a bound like a buck. She had found out the right depth of pin this time. “Ah! where is my whip? I have dropped it; how careless!” Then they had to ride back for the whip, and by this means joined Mr. Fountain. Lucy rode by his side, and got the carriage between her and her beau. By this plan she not only evaded sentiment, but matured by a series of secret trials her skill with her weapon. Armed with this new science, she issued forth, and, whenever Mr. Talboys left off indifferent remarks and sounded her affections, she probed the pony, and he kicked or bolted as the case might require. “Confound that pony!” cried Talboys; “he used to be quiet enough.” “Oh, don't scold him, dear, playful little love. He carries me like a wave.” At this simple sentence Talboys' dormant jealousy contrived to revive. He turned sulky, and would not waste any more tenderness, and presently they rattled over the stones of Royston. Lucy commended her pony with peculiar earnestness to the ostler. “Pray groom him well, and feed him well, sir; he is a love.” The ostler swore he would not wrong her ladyship's nag for the world. Lucy then expressed her desire to go forward without delay: “Aunt will expect me.” She took her seat in the carriage, bade a kind farewell to both the gentlemen now that no tender answer was possible, and was whirled away. Thus the coy virgin eluded the pair. Now her manner in taking leave of Talboys was so kind, so smiling (in the sweet consciousness of having baffled him), that Fountain felt sure it all had gone smoothly. They were engaged. “Well?” he cried, with great animation. “No,” was the despondent reply. “Refused?” screeched the other; “impossible!” “No, thank you,” was the haughty reply. “What then? Did you change your mind? Didn't you propose after all?” “I _couldn't._ That d--d pony wouldn't keep still.” Fountain groaned. Lucy, left to herself, gave a little sigh of relief. She had been playing a part for the last twenty-four hours. Her cordiality with Mr. Talboys naturally misled Eve and David, and perhaps a male reader or two. Shall I give the clue? It may be useful to you, young gentlemen. Well, then, her sex are compounders. Accustomed from childhood never to have anything entirely their own way, they are content to give and take; and, these terms once accepted, it is a point of honor and tact with them not to let a creature see the irksome part of the bargain is not as delicious as the other. One coat of their own varnish goes over the smooth and the rough, the bitter and the sweet. Now Lucy, besides being singularly polite and kind, was _femme jusqu' au bout des ongles._ If her instincts had been reasons, and her vague thoughts could have been represented by anything so definite as words, the result might have appeared thus: