"Oh, here you are," she cried, rising with alacrity, "I'm so glad. I want to go out for a stroll, and Mrs. Trubbles doesn't. That nuisance of a husband of hers is talking her to sleep with politics." "He is rather a trial," murmured Otterburn, as they went outside. "Trial!" echoed Miss Sheldon, with supreme contempt, unfurling her sunshade, "I should just think so. One might as well have married a Blue-Book. Why did she marry him?" "For the sake of contrast, probably." "It's not impossible. Where is the amiable Mr. Gartney?" "Gone geologizing, or ruin-hunting. Something of that sort!" "Alone?" "Entirely." "Then he's in very good company." "Oh, I say, you know," said Angus, making a weak stand for the character of his absent friend, "Gartney isn't a bad fellow." "I never said he was." "No--but you think----" "It's more than you do, or you wouldn't stand there talking such nonsense," said Victoria severely. "Come and buy me some peaches." So Otterburn held his tongue in the meekest manner, and bought her peaches, which they devoured comfortably by the lake, talking of everything, except Eustace Gartney. In the meanwhile that gentleman, considerably upset in his own mind by what he termed Macjean's selfishness (he was quite oblivious of his own), had gone round to some stables in the village, selected a carriage, and was now being driven along the dusty white road in the direction of Cantari. The driver, a swarthy young man with a somewhat dilapidated suit of clothes, a shining hard hat, and a good-natured smile, called the weak-kneed animal which drew the vehicle "Tista," and "Tista" was the nearest approach to a skeleton ever seen outside the walls of a museum. Peppino (the driver) encouraged Tista (the horse) by first shouting and then abusing him in voluble Italian. "Ah, pig of a horse why go so slow? Child of Satan, is not the corn of the illustrious Signor waiting for thee at Cantari?" It might have been, but Tista seemed to have his doubts about the truth of this statement, for he did not mend his pace, but ambled complacently on, stopping every now and then to whisk a fly from his hide. At last, in despair, Peppino got down from his perch and trudged up the hill beside Tista, who shook his bells bravely and made a great show of speed over the irregular road. "Hadn't you better carry him?" asked Eustace in Italian, observing this comedy in sarcastic silence. "I don't think he'll live as far as Cantari." Peppino touched his hat, grinned at the wit of the English milord, and without any reply went on abusing the stolid Tista with the brilliant vocabulary of a Texus mule driver. At last Tista with much difficulty managed to gain the top of the hill, whereupon Peppino mounted his perch once more, cracked his whip in grand style, and his attenuated horse proceeded to tumble down the incline.