"Don't perjure yourself, my good fellow," said Victor, coolly, "but assist us to some breakfast. The terrace has given us an appetite." "How is your headache, my dear?" said my aunt, from across the table. "My headache, ma'am? Oh, I forgot--I beg your pardon; it's better, thank you." "How serious it must have been!" said Josephine. "Oh! by the way, Mr. Rutledge, it isn't worth while to ask them to join us in _our_ party this morning, is it? They didn't ask us to go with them." Mr. Rutledge shrugged his shoulders. "I think, Miss Josephine, we are safe in asking them; they wouldn't accept, of course, and we should save our credit, you know." "I would not trust them, sir. It's my advice that they're not asked." "Then," returned Mr. Rutledge, with a low bow and his finest smile, "as with me to hear is to obey, I resign all thought of remonstrance, and acquiesce in the decree." Josephine accepted the homage very graciously, and the jest was kept up around the table till I, for one, was heartily sick of it. No one supposed, however, that I would be fool enough to take it in earnest; but I was just such a fool; and when, an hour or two later, the horses were brought to the door, and the scattered party summoned from library, parlor, billiard-room, and garden, to prepare for the drive, I was struggling with a fit of ill-temper in my own room, which resulted in my "begging to be excused," when Thomas came to the door to announce the carriage. My refusal didn't seem to damp the spirits of the party much. I looked through the half closed blinds to see them start. Victor at the last minute pleaded a headache, and "begged to be excused," on which occasion the captain made one of the jokes for which he was justly famous, and led off the laugh after it. "The pretty darling's in the sulks, I suppose," I heard Grace say; but no one was at the pains to resent or applaud the remark, and I listened to the departing carriage-wheels and the lessening sound of merry voices with anything but a merry heart.