For answer, I am sorry to say, this young gentleman executed a solemn wink. The age of chivalry may or may not be on the wane, but woman-worshippers of to-day adopt a free-and-easy manner in expressing their adoration, little flattering to the shrines at which they bow.
"Did you really want to see me?" continued Miss Douglas; "and why couldn't you call? I'd have ridden with you this morning if I'd known you were in town."
"Got no quad.," answered the laconic Daisy.
"And yet you lent me your mare!" said she. "Indeed, I can't think of keeping her; I'll return her at once. Oh! Daisy! you unselfish—"
"Unselfish what?"
"Goose!" replied the lady. "Now, when will you have her back? She's as quiet again as she used to be, and I do believe there isn't such another beauty in the world."
"That's why I gave her to you," answered Daisy. "It's no question of lending; she's yours, just as much as this umbrella's mine. Beauty! I should think she was a beauty. I don't pay compliments, or I'd say—there's a pair of you! Now, look here, Miss Douglas, I might ask you to lend her to me for a month, perhaps, if I saw my way into a real good thing. I don't think I ever told you how I came to buy that mare, or what a clipper she is!"
"Tell me now!" said Miss Douglas eagerly. "Let's move on; people stare so if one stops. You can speak the truth walking, I suppose, as well as standing still!"
"It's truth I'm telling ye!" he answered, with a laugh. "I heard of that mare up in Roscommon when she was two years old. I was a year and a half trying to buy her; but I got her at last, for I'm not an impatient fellow, you know, and I never lose sight of a thing I fancy I should like."