'Yaas,' drawled Gaskins. 'I flatter myself that few gents appear with better boot tops than Cadbury and myself. I clean them with a preparation—quite a conserve, Mr. Hackendore, peculiarly my own.'
'And what may that be?' asked Archie.
'Champagne and apricot jam,' replied Gaskins, twirling his moustache and eyeing the old man with intense superciliousness.
'Set ye up, indeed, wi' your buits and belts!' snapped Archie. 'Ye think yoursel' made for the siller; but a bawbee cat may look at a king.'
'I don't understand the sense of your remark,' drawled Gaskins, shortening his reins.
'Like enough—like enough; mony complain o' want o' siller, but few complain o' want o' sense; and a gowk at Yule will ne'er be bricht at Beltane.'
'What the devil is he talking about?' thought the bewildered groom, as he put spurs to his horse and trotted away.
'Wi' a' his bravery,' said Archie, with a grimace, 'he's a loon that will loup the dyke where it's laighest.'
Alison divided the bouquet into portions for various vases to ornament her drawing-room, and on the following day, after a more than usually careful toilette, while her father was occupied in worry and perplexity over letters and accounts, seated herself in the deep bay of a window that overlooked the avenue, her heart beating quicker as the noon wore on.
She had a novel in her hand, but we doubt if she knew even the title of it. Pleasure, doubt, and anxiety were mingling in the girl's mind—pleasure, as she thought, 'I shall see him again for a time, however brief!'—doubt of what might ensue if she saw him under the keen watchful eyes of her father, who could detect every expression of her face, and a great anxiety lest she might be requested to avoid all intimacy, even acquaintanceship, with Bevil Goring in future; but little could she foresee the turn matters were to take, or the events of the next few days.