"I have, right enough. I went round to Ben Steel's when I came back from Runnydale. He's arranged to take you out twice a week. I'm going with you--so as you don't feel strange. I told Ben you'd take to it like a duck to water. 'That young lady'll look stunning on horseback,' Steel said. A little cheeky of him, but he's privileged. I say, Deleah, what'll the old women of Brockenham say when they see you with me, a-cock-horse, riding side by side past their windows?" "They'll never see me doing it, Reggie. I'm not going to ride with you, my dear boy." "You wait! You'll change your mind when you see Laura Candy's little brown mare. Let me bring her up for you to see, to-morrow. Look here, I'm to send over for her to-night. Oh, hang it all, Deleah, we'll put off the marrying for a time if you like, but I've set my heart on having some rides together. You don't know how proud I shall be to ride with you beside me down Broad Street, and through the market-place, and up St. Margaret's Lane. It will give all the cackling old women something to talk about." It was with difficulty she made him understand that to help him to afford food for gossip was not her ambition, that she declined his escort on horseback through the streets of her native town, as well as his companionship through life. The events of the day had hardened her heart; and she succeeded in convincing him at last. "And, Reggie, you are not to come to our house any more; you are never to write me letters; you are not to waylay me in the streets." "Oh, I say, Deleah! Come! You can't mean it." "I mean every word." "But can't I sometimes meet you by accident even?" "If you do I shall cut you." "And if I won't be cut?" "I shall call a policeman." She laughed, but she made him see that she was in earnest. He walked by her side, crestfallen, a grieving look on his good-humoured, pleasant face. The hunting season was not here for several months. His head and his heart had been filled of late with Deleah, his time had been passed in riding down Bridge Street in the hope that she might be looking out of window, in waylaying her when she came from school, in sitting in the room over the shop with Bessie, to get rid of time till Deleah should appear. "If I'm to give up seeing you, and trying to see you, what on earth am I to do?" he asked. "You are to travel." "Why that is what Francis has been sticking into me! "There you are, then. Two people who know what is good for you, Reggie." "Francis is in a deuce of a hurry. He wants me to go next week." "And why not?" "I don't know why not--now," a miserable Reggie admitted. "Then go at once and tell him you are ready." For her word's sake to his brother she wrung a reluctant assent from him, and left him. But an hour later Emily bringing in the tea announced that a gentleman had called to see Miss Deleah.