"If you'll pull him up, I think I'll get out and walk," said Mr. Scobel, the back of whose head was on a level with the circle which the pony's hoofs would have been likely to describe in the event of kicking.
"Oh, please don't!" cried Vixen. "If you do that I shall think you've no confidence in my driving."
She pulled Titmouse together, and coaxed him into an unobjectionable trot; a trot which travelled over the ground very fast, without giving the occupants of the carriage the uncomfortable sensation of sitting behind a pony intent on getting to the sharp edge of the horizon and throwing himself over.
They were going up a long hill. Halfway up they came to the gate of the kennels. Violet looked at it with a curious half-reluctant glance that expressed the keenest pain.
"Poor papa," she sighed. "He never seemed happier than when he used to take me to see the hounds."
"Mr. Vawdrey is to have them next year," said Mrs. Scobel. "That seems right and proper. He will be the biggest man in this part of the country when the Ashbourne and Briarwood estates are united. And the Duke cannot live very long—a man who gives his mind to eating and drinking, and is laid up with the gout twice a year."
"Do you know when they are to be married?" asked Vixen, with an unconcerned air.
"At the end of this year, I am told. Lady Jane died last November. They would hardly have the wedding before a twelvemonth was over. Have you seen much of Mr. Vawdrey since he came back?"
"I believe I have seen him three times: once at Lady Southminster's ball; once when he came to call upon mamma; once at kettledrum at Ellangowan, where he was in attendance upon Lady Mabel. He looked rather like a little dog at the end of a string; he had just that meekly-obedient look, combined with an expression of not wanting to be there, which you see in a dog. If I were engaged, I would not take my fiancée to kettledrums."
"Ah, Violet, when are you going to be engaged?" cried Mrs. Scobel, in a burst of playfulness. "Where is the man worthy of you?"