He makes the case more difficult by laying his refusal chiefly on his own convenience; dilating on the much greater speed and ease with which he will be able to transact his business, if _alone_, than if weighted by a woman, and a woman's paraphernalia, and also on the desirability of having in me a _locum tenens_ for himself at Tempest.

But, in my soul, I know that both these are hollow pretenses to lighten the weight on my conscience.
"But," say I, with discontented demurring, "you have been away often before! how did Tempest get on _then_ ?" He laughs.
"Very middling, indeed! last time I was away the servants gave a ball in the new ballroom--so my friends told me afterward, and the time before, the butler took the housekeeper a driving-tour in my T.-cart.

I should not have minded _that_ much--but I suppose he was not a very good whip, and so he threw down one of my best horses, and broke his knees!" "Well, they _shall not_ give a ball!" say I, resolutely, "but"-- (in a tone of melancholy helplessness)--"they may throw down _all_ the horses, for any thing _I_ can do to prevent them! A horse's knees would have to be _very much broken_ before I should perceive that they were!" "You must get Algy to help you," he says, kindly.

"It is an ill wind that blows nobody good, is not it?
Poor boy!"-- (laughing)--"You must not expect _him_ to be very keen about my speedy return." As he speaks, an arrow of animosity toward Algy shoots through my heart.
We are at Tempest--Sir Roger and I.It has been his wish to establish me there before his departure; and now it is the gray of the evening before his setting off, and we are strolling through the still park.

Vick is racing, with idiotic ardor, through the tall green bracken, after the mottled deer, yelping with shrill insanity, and vainly imagining that she is going to overtake them.