"Do you ride?" continued he.
"No, my lord."
"Why not? every woman should ride; a woman never looks so well as on horse-back, well mounted, and in a handsome habit—you should ride—don't you like it?"
"There are, sometimes, other impediments, my lord, besides want of taste, even to so becoming an amusement," replied Emma, gravely.
"Eh? I don't understand," resumed he, "what prevents you?"
"I have no horse," replied Emma, thinking that the shortest way of finishing the subject, and reducing it to the level of his capacity.
"Then your father should keep one for you," observed he.
"My father cannot afford it," said Emma, decidedly; "and I have no wish to act in a way inconsistent with our circumstances."
"Poor is he? how uncomfortable!" said Lord Osborne, "why, what's his income, do you suppose?" continuing in the tone in which he would have questioned a day labourer as to his wages.
"It is a point upon which I never thought myself entitled to enquire," she replied, drawing herself proudly up, and speaking in a tone not to be misunderstood.