“Oh, but why not offer thirty?” she cried.
Charles laughed. “That would be a scurvy trick, sweetheart, and if Peregrine be a crooked stick, we need not be crooked too.”
“I was about to ask,” said the Doctor, “whether you had heard aught of that same young gentleman.”
“I have seen him where I never desire to see him again,” said Sir Philip, “riding as though he would be the death of the poor hounds.”
“Nick Huntsman swears that he bewitches them,” said Charles, “for they always lose the scent when he is in the field, but I believe ’tis the wry looks of him that throw them all out.”
“And I say,” cried the inconsistent bride, “that ’tis all jealousy that puts the gentlemen beside themselves, because none of them can dance, nor make a bow, nor hand a cup of chocolate, nor open a gate on horseback like him.”
“What does a man on horseback want with opening gates?” exclaimed Charles.
“That’s your manners, sir,” said young Madam with a laugh. “What’s the poor lady to do while her cavalier flies over and leaves her in the lurch?”
Her husband did not like the general laugh, and muttered, “You know what I mean well enough.”
“Yes, so do I! To fumble at the fastening till your poor beast can bear it no longer and swerves aside, and I sit waiting a good half hour before you bring down your pride enough to alight and open it.”