"Well, but you do, you know, Tom."
"Oh yes; Cousin Blanche is so charming, you know, Kitty, that I ought to be the happiest young fellow in the world. Everybody tells me so; and what everybody says must be true. But for all that, Kitty—" and then Kitty's brother came to a full stop.
"Well, Tom?" This after a long pause.
"Suppose we change the subject, Kitty."
"With all my heart; only we have not begun it yet, and mamma wanted me to say just a word—may I? She thinks I can do it better than she can."
"Say away, then, darling; but wait a bit: I'll just hitch this line round the bolt, and take the rudder strings, There—so; now."
It is as well to say that two years had passed away since we fell in with Tom the younger at the Manor House. He is consequently eighteen years old, or a little over, and a strange sensation sometimes creeps over him, when he reminds himself that in three years' time he is to be a married man, will-he, nil-he; and the "nil-he" is at present uppermost in his mind.
"And now," said he, settling himself soberly to hear what his sister (who at seventeen is, in some respects, older than her brother at eighteen) has to say.
"Mamma thinks you don't pay quite proper attentions to Blanche."
"Pho! Pho! Kitty. Not proper attentions! Why, don't I go to see her once a week? If that is not often enough, I don't know what would be."