The tails of both hung down behind.
Their shoes were on their feet.'”
“Doctor!”
I stopped—there seemed more reality in his feelings than I had been aware of; and it is scarcely right to make a mock of even the fire-and-smoke, dust-and-ashes passion of a boy.
“I beg your pardon; not knowing the affair had gone so far. Still, it isn't worth being dead and buried for.”
“What business has she to go riding with that big clod-hopping lout? And what right has he to lend her his brown mare?” chafed Treherne, with a great deal more which I did not much attend to. At last, weary of playing Friar Lawrence to such a very uninteresting Romeo, I hinted, that if he disapproved of the young lady's behaviour, he ought to appeal to her own good sense, to her father, or somebody—or, since women understand one another best, get Lady Augusta Treherne to do it.
“My mother! She never even heard of her. Why, you speak as seriously as if I were actually intending to marry her!”
Here I could not help rousing myself a trifle.
“Excuse me—it never struck me that a gentleman could discuss a young lady among his acquaintance, make a public show of his admiration for her, interfere with her proceedings or her conduct towards any other gentleman, and not intend to marry her. Suppose we choose another subject of conversation.”
Treherne grew hot to the ears, but he took the hint and spared me his sentimental maunderings.