“You want to try to make me out to be a meddler and a busybody,” said Rosamond; “but I am not that. I only say what I feel. Why, _you_ should be the one to make the house pleasant! You are going out to shoot to-morrow, you and Eddy, and we are to bring you your luncheon out on the hill. You ought to be all full of _petits soucis_, and make it pleasant for us; but you will not. I know what you will do. You will sit down on a stone as far away as you can go, and you will bend down your brow, and perhaps turn your back, and never say one word.” “I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Archie, red with rage, especially as she shrugged up her shoulders, and put down her chin, and contracted her forehead in a manner which he felt to be more or less like himself. “Yes, you will,” said Rosamond, with the point-blank contradiction of youth. “No, I will not,” cried the boy, forgetting everything but his wrongs. A hot moisture came to his eyes. “I hate shooting,” he said; “I hate company. I hate all those antics I was not brought up to. What business have you to come here and want London manners from me?” “You poor boy,” said Rosamond, shaking her highly poised head. “London manners,” she said, in a tone of the mildest philosophy, “are often just what yours are. Men in London ape being rude like you. They pretend to care for nothing; not to hear what people say to them. It is smart to be uncivil, don’t you know? If you keep it up, you will be the fashion when you go to town.” Archie clenched his fist in the height of his passion; not, of course, to hit out at Rowland, but at somebody--at the London men--at the detestable world. “Oh, you may be angry,” said the young lady, “but it is quite true. Should you like to dance with me again, Mr. Rowland, for you see Eddy and Marion are off once more? and Mrs. Rowland plays very well--really very nicely, for such an old-fashioned thing as she is playing. If you do not choose to dance, as there is nobody else to take me out, perhaps you will kindly say so, and then we need not continue standing here.” Said Archie, with a gasp, with sudden humility, “I can’t dance at all; do you want to make a fool of me! If you think it is my fault, you are quite mistaken. I don’t want to be ridiculous. I would talk and do things if I could----” “Come along then and try,” said the girl. “Don’t be flurried and nervous. Let us make for the other end of the room, where there is not much light--and do remember not to knock against your father. That was not bad at all; now, one turn more, and then make for the window, and take me out.” “You will catch cold,” said Archie, breathlessly.