Before Brinsley was mounted, Fanny was over the fence with her mare and waiting for him in the road.
"Oh, come along!" she cried, "Don't be all day getting on!"
"You needn't be so tremendously rough on a fellow," said Brinsley, as his horse landed in the road. "It wasn't my fault that I wasn't waiting for a runaway under the trees up there."
"Yes it was! Everything's your fault," answered Fanny, emphatically. "No—you needn't play Orlando Furioso and make papa's old rocking-horse waltz like that. My mare's got to walk a mile, at least, for her nerves."
It didn't require Brinsley's great natural penetration to tell him that Miss Fanny Trehearne was in the very worst of tempers—even to the point of unfairly calling her papa's sturdy Hungarian bad names. But he could not at all see why she should be so angry. It had certainly been her fault if he had failed to put her neatly in the saddle. But her ill-humour did not frighten him in the least, though he was very quiet for several minutes after she had last spoken.
"It's not wildly gay to ride with people who don't talk," observed Fanny.
"I was trying to think of something appropriate to say," answered Brinsley. "But you're in such an awful rage—"
"Am I? I didn't know it. What makes you think so?"
"What nerves you've got!" exclaimed Brinsley, in a tone of admiration.
"I haven't any nerves at all."