"Even poor Mr Horner can be agreeable and amusing, and _you_ won't even try to be. I will go to him," she continued, still striving to get me to be more sociable; but I was obstinate and ill-tempered. An angel would not have pacified me. How could I have been so rude to her? I was a brute. "Ah," I exclaimed, "_his_ conversation is truly intellectual!" She was quite vexed now. "You are very unkind," she said. "You speak ill-naturedly of everybody, and are cross with me on my birthday! I won't speak to you, Frank, again this evening; there, see if I do!" and she turned away from me with a tremble in her voice, and an indignant look in the, now, flashing, grey eyes. She kept her promise. Much as I tried, when my ill-temper had subsided, to get speech with her, I was not allowed a word. Even when leaving the house, I only received a bow. She would not shake hands, to show that I was forgiven. I had stopped to the very last in order to sit out Horner. _He_ would not budge first, and _I_ would not budge first; so now we started off together, our homeward routes being identical. You may imagine that I felt very amicably disposed towards him. I was ripe for a quarrel, or at least a separation; and Horner soon gave me an opening. He began to praise Min's looks and voice, and the manner in which she had sung the songs _he_ had asked her for, including the one _he_ had given her that evening. Really, the cool impudence of Horner was something astounding! What right had he to criticise her? He spoke just as if she belonged to him, I assure you! This was too much, after what I had already gone through. "Which way are you going?" I asked him suddenly. "Gaw-ing?" he said, in a surprised tone. "Why, stwaight on, of cawse-- stwaight on!" "Then, I'm going round _here_!" I said, wheeling off abruptly at a right angle from the road we had been pursuing, and going out of my way in order to get rid of him. Flesh and blood could no longer stand his unmeaning, yet gibing platitudes. "Bai-ey Je-ove!" he exclaimed. "But, stawp, my deah fellah. Lorton, I asshaw you I only meant to say--ah--that Miss Clyde sang my songs most divinely--ah--and that she's--ah--a vewy nice gahl--ah!" Confound him! What business had he to say or think anything of the sort? I could faintly hear his voice exclaim "Bai-ey Je-ove!" in the distance, after some seconds' interval, during which we had become widely separated. I was as thoroughly out of temper as I could possibly be. I was angry with everybody in the world, Min not excepted, and with the world itself; but, at myself, more than all. CHAPTER EIGHT. ONLY ABOUT A LITTLE BIRD. Oh! let them ne'er, with artificial note, To please a tyrant, strain their little bill; But sing what heaven inspires, and wander where they will! I was ten times angrier with myself when I got home.