Here he coughed loudly—quite an ugly cough.
“Are you tired?” he demanded.
“Not at all!”
“You women generally get tired after half an hour’s walking,” he said. “Would you like to sit on that stile and look at the scenery?”
“No, thanks! I would rather go on.”
The Philosopher’s face fell. The stile he had alluded to was quite a tempting thing. It was situated under an ancient tree whose broad branches spread out sheltering foliage on all sides, and it would have been very agreeable to him to sit there and rest for a few minutes, even with a “sentimental goose” for his companion. But this goose would rather go on. And she did go on;—she was over the stile, too, before he could so much as assist her, and he only caught a glimpse of a frilled flounce and the point of a buckled shoe. This was really too bad!
“You’re in such a hurry this morning,” he grumbled. “And we’ve come out for a sociable walk.”
“Oh, no, we haven’t!” she said. “Much more than that! You want to think, you know!”
“Well, a man must think sometimes,” he observed.
“Indeed he must!” she agreed, emphatically. “Not only sometimes, but always! Then he will know what he is doing!”