"You were always in earnest, Oswald."
"I was."
"To the extent of the three minutes which you allowed yourself. It sufficed, however;—did it not? You are glad you persevered?"
"What fools women are."
"Never mind that. Say you are glad. I like you to tell me so. Let me be a fool if I will."
"What made you so obstinate?"
"I don't know. I never could tell. It wasn't that I didn't dote upon you, and think about you, and feel quite sure that there never could be any other one than you."
"I've no doubt it was all right;—only you very nearly made me shoot a fellow, and now I've got to find horses for him. I wonder whether he could ride Dandolo?"
"Don't put him up on anything very hard."
"Why not? His wife is dead, and he hasn't got a child, nor yet an acre of property. I don't know who is entitled to break his neck if he is not. And Dandolo is as good a horse as there is in the stable, if you can once get him to go. Mind, I have to start to-morrow at nine, for it's all eighteen miles." And so the Master of the Brake Hounds took himself to his repose.