"What a chase you've given me, Helen!" he cried, while yet pounding away some score of yards off.
"A wild-goose one you mean, cousin?"
"It would have been if I had thought to catch you on this ancient cocktail."
"Don't abuse the old horse, George: he has seen better days. I would gladly have mounted you more to your mind, but you know I could not—except indeed I had given you my Fanny, and taken the old horse myself. I have ridden him."
"The lady ought always to be the better mounted," returned George coolly. "For my part, I much prefer it, because then I need not be anxious about whether I am boring her or not: if I am, she can run away."
"You cannot suppose I thought you a bore to-night. A more sweetly silent gentleman none could wish for squire."
"Then it was my silence bored you.—Shall I tell you what I was thinking about?"
"If you like. I was thinking how pleasant it would be to ride on and on into eternity," said Helen.
"That feeling of continuity," returned George, "is a proof of the painlessness of departure. No one can ever know when he ceases to be, because then he is not; and that is how some men come to fancy they feel as if they were going to live for ever. But the worst of it is that they no sooner fancy it, than it seems to them a probable as well as delightful thing to go on and on and never cease. This comes of the man's having no consciousness of ceasing, and when one is comfortable, it always seems good to go on. A child is never willing to turn from the dish of which he is eating to another. It is more he wants, not another."
"That is if he likes it," said Helen.