Chapter Eight.
“I say, don’t be in such a jolly hurry. You’re all right here, you know. I want to talk to you.”
“You really must excuse me now, Claud; I have not been well, and I’m going back to my room.”
“Of course you haven’t been well, Kitty—I say, I shall call you Kitty, you know—you can’t expect to be well moping upstairs in your room. I’ll soon put you right, better than that solemn-looking Doctor. You want to be out in the woods and fields. I know the country about here splendidly. I say, you ride, don’t you?”
“I? No.”
“Then I’ll teach you. Get your old maid to make you a good long skirt—that will do for a riding-habit at first—I’ll clap the side-saddle on my cob, and soon show you how to ride like a plucky girl should. I say, Kitty, I’ll hold you on at first—tight.”
The speaker smiled at her, and the girl shrank from him, but he did not see it.
“You’ll soon ride, and then you and I will have the jolliest of times together. I’ll make you ride so that by this time next year you’ll follow the hounds, and top a hedge with the best of them.”
“Oh, no, I have no wish to ride, Claud.”