"Spirited, but free from vice. Ormonde had them from my stables. It's no use learning to drive with dull, inanimate brutes. You'll consider yourself engaged?"
"I do, if Mrs. Ormonde does not want me to go anywhere with her."
"She will not," said De Burgh, confidently.
"Good-night," returned Katherine. "Tell Mrs. Ormonde I have stolen away, for I have a slight headache."
"What? going already?" cried De Burgh. "No more songs? The evening, then, is over."
The following day was soft and bright. March had evidently made up his martial mind to go out in a lamb-like fashion, and De Burgh was unusually amiable and communicative. "When shall you be ready to start?" he asked, following Katherine from the breakfast-table.
"To start where?" she asked.
"What! have you forgotten our plans of last night?" was his counter-question. "I am to give you your first lesson in driving this morning. I only wait your orders before going to see the ponies put in. We had better take advantage of the fine morning."
"Ay, that's right, De Burgh; make hay while the sun shines," said Ormonde, with his usual tact and jocularity. "But it would be better to have tried a quieter pair than Dick and Dandie."
"I think you may trust Miss Liddell to me," returned De Burgh, impatiently. "Well, when shall I bring round the trap?"