"Mind where you're walking, will you?" exclaimed Wimpenny, cut short in a very flowery compliment which Dorothy was perhaps not sorry to have curtailed. "I beg your pardon, Miss Tinker, I'm afraid I was very careless. I did not see. I was thinking." "Now that is not a very gallant speech, Tom--I mean Mr. Pinder. Mr. Wimpenny would have assured me that he never thought at all except of me, and that he would have divined my presence by instinct a mile off." But Wimpenny was not to be rallied into good humour. He had put on a very tight-fitting pair of patent-leather shoes, and he suffered from the usual infliction of those who wear tight boots,--and Tom had grazed his foot. "Mr. Pinder! indeed," he thought, "why, damme, it's one of old Tinker's mill hands." Now Tom, having made his apologies to Dorothy, was for pursuing the tenor of his way, being by no means disposed to offer any to Mr. Wimpenny. "Oh, you mustn't go, Mr. Pinder, you must take me to Lucy; but first you must help me to gather some flowers. You know Paris so well, Mr. Wimpenny, and must excuse my accent. Shall I say _Au revoir_ or _A bientot_, and without waiting for a reply she turned in the direction of the garden at the house, Leaving Nehemiah dumbfounded. "Curse the jade," he muttered to himself, "chucked over for a dirty weaver, by Jove. But I'll be even with her yet. It doesn't do to play tricks with Miss Dorothy, and so you'll find some day. But I can bide my time. I'll go and have a drink at the _Crown_, Polly 'll be glad to see me anyhow." And Tom walked as in a dream. The sky was blue again, and the lark trilled a clearer note, and all the earth was glad in its summer joyousness. CHAPTER X