"You must be very strong!"
"Yes, I think I am. I am always well; yes, I suppose I am strong."
He still sighs at her; the graceful figure is so slight that he finds it difficult to realize her doing twenty-four miles. The women he knows would have a fit at the mere thought of such an undertaking.
"I think to-morrow is going to be a fine day," he says, looking up at the cloudless sky with a business-like air.
"Yes," says Leslie, as if she were first cousin to the clerk of the weather. "It's going to be fine to-morrow."
"Well, then," he says, "I'll try and get something and drive my cousin over to—what's the name of the place with the castle?"
"St. Martin."
"Yes. The worst of it is that he—I mean my cousin, and not St. Martin—so soon gets bored if he hasn't some one more amusing than I am to keep him company; you see, he's an invalid, and crotchety."
"Poor fellow!" murmurs Leslie. "And yet he is so kind and generous," she adds as she thinks of the fifty pounds he has given for the "picture."
"Yes, indeed!" he assents. "The best fellow that ever drew breath, for all his whims and fancies; and he can't help having those, you know. He would like to go to St. Martin to-morrow, especially if you—do you think we could persuade you and Mr. Lisle to accompany us?"