As the road grew steeper, Brown Becky slackened her pace.
The heavy storms had tempered the great heat, and though the sky was cloudless and the sunshine brilliant, the trees meeting overhead gave them a pleasant shade, and a soft, refreshing breeze blew in their faces.

Malcolm drew a long breath of delight.
"There is nothing like the country after all," he observed.

"When I have made my pile, I shall pitch my tent or build myself a hut far from the madding crowd, and bid good-bye to Lincoln's Inn, and Piccadilly, and club-land, and all the delights of modern civilisation." "Not you, old fellow," returned Cedric sagaciously.

"Why, you would be bored to death in no time." But Malcolm shook his head.
"Am I not a lover of the picturesque, my dear boy?
Nature intended me for a country gentleman." Malcolm so dearly loved argument for its own sake that he did not always consider it necessary to weigh the accurate truth of his words.

He liked to take different views of the same subject.