“Half our preferences are due to the vanity they flatter. Few can ride this horse; any one, perhaps, that.”
“There speaks the Dare-all!” said Lionel, laughing. The host did not look displeased.
“Where no difficulty, there no pleasure,” said he in his curt laconic diction. “I was in Spain two years ago. I had not an English horse there, so I bought that Andalusian jennet. What has served him at need, no preux chevalier would leave to the chance of ill-usage. So the jennet came with me to England. You have not been much accustomed to ride, I suppose?”
“Not much; but my dear mother thought I ought to learn. She pinched for a whole year to have me taught at a riding-school during one school vacation.”
“Your mother’s relations are, I believe, well off. Do they suffer her to pinch?”
“I do not know that she has relations living; she never speaks of them.”
“Indeed!” This was the first question on home matters that Darrell had ever directly addressed to Lionel. He there dropped the subject, and said, after a short pause, “I was not aware that you are a horseman, or I would have asked you to accompany me; will you do so to-morrow, and mount the jennet?”
“Oh, thank you; I should like it so much.”
Darrell turned abruptly away from the bright, grateful eyes. “I am only sorry,” he added, looking aside, “that our excursions can be but few. On Friday next I shall submit to you a proposition; if you accept it, we shall part on Saturday,—liking each other, I hope: speaking for myself, the experiment has not failed; and on yours?”
“On mine!—oh, Mr. Darrell, if I dared but tell you what recollections of yourself the experiment will bequeath to me!”