"I am asking it as a
favour, I am indeed! I shall be here for weeks, months, perhaps, and I
should be bored to death--"
"With your father's house full of visitors?" she put in, softly, and
with a smile breaking through her gravity.
"Oh, they'll amuse themselves," he said. "At any rate, I sha'n't be
with them all day; and I'd ever so much rather help you than dance
attendance on them."
She pushed the short silky curls from her temples, and shook her head.
"Of course it's ridiculous," she said, with a girlish laugh; "and it's
impossible, too."
"Oh, is it?" he retorted. "I've never yet found anything I wanted to do
impossible."
"You always have your own way?" she asked.
"By hook or by crook," he replied.
"But why do you want to--help me?" she asked. "Do you think you would
find it amusing? You wouldn't." The laughter shone in her eyes again.
"You would soon grow tired of it. It is not like hunting or fishing or
golfing; it's work that tries the temper--I never knew what a fiendish
temper I had got about me until the first time I had to drive a cow and
calf."
"My temper couldn't be worse," he remarked, calmly.
Pages:
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156