“I am glad you are not my wife,” continued Geoffrey, perfectly unruffled by her interruption. “I remember you as a small child, a horrid, cross, cantankerous little monkey, flying into awful tantrums and rages for nothing at all. You bit me once, I recollect, my young lady.” “I’m sure I never did,” cried Alice indignantly. “Pardon me; I have every reason to remember it. Your teeth were as sharp then as your tongue is now. You asked my pardon, and said you were very sorry, and all that, and I forgave you. Query, will Reginald forgive you for the nice trick you have served him? What possessed him to marry you is a riddle I have given up long ago. However, if anyone can break you in to trot nicely and quietly in double harness, Reginald is the man. He stands no nonsense, as I daresay you know by this time, madam.” “Have you done, Geoffrey?” “Not quite yet. Supposing he is killed out there, or is carried off by fever or cholera, how will you feel? The chances are fifty to one against his ever coming home. If he does not, his death will lie at your door as surely as if you had murdered him.” Now Alice, whatever fear she had of Helen, had no awe of Geoffrey, and whatever she might suffer from self-reproach, had no idea of being taken to task in this way by him. “One would think, to hear you talk, Geoffrey, that you were the injured party. Pray what business is it of yours, my kind and complimentary cousin? If you could contrive to mind your own affairs and leave me to manage mine I should feel obliged,” said Alice with much dignity, taking up _Punch_ once more from her lap and casting a look of indignant defiance over the top of its pages at her irrepressible cousin. “By rights you ought to be at school; you are barely eighteen--far too young to know your own mind; not that you have much mind to know,” he added, crossing his legs and gazing at her dispassionately. “Much or little, it is made up on one subject most thoroughly,” returned Alice with an angry spot on either cheek. “If you do not cease these civilities and leave me in peace, Geoffrey, I shall get out at the next station, and travel in another carriage.” “Here you are then!” he returned unabashed, as the slackening pace and large sheds full of rolling stock and network of lines betokened their arrival at a junction. “This will do,” said a high treble voice, and the carriage-door opened and displayed two very fashionable-looking ladies, a maid, a poodle, various monstrous wicker travelling cases, a varied assortment of small parcels, dressing-cases, umbrellas, and other light odds and ends. The party were under the charge of a stout, red-faced, irascible-looking old gentleman, who seemed by no means equal to the occasion, and was soon to be seen coursing up and down the platform, inveighing at porters, accosting guards, and altogether in a state of excitement bordering on delirium.