"Oh, by-the-by, if you will not think me impertinent for asking, where did you first fall in with Sir Roger?
I should have thought that he was rather out of your beat; you do not hail from his part of the world, do you ?" "No," reply I, my thoughts traveling back to the day when we made taffy, and tumbled over each other, hot and sticky to the window, to see the dog-cart bearing the stranger roll up the drive.

"I never saw him till this last March, when he came to stay with us." "To stay with you ?" "Yes," reply I, thinking of our godless jokes about his wig and his false calves, and smiling gently to myself; "he was an old friend of father's." "A contemporary, I suppose ?" (a little inquisitively).
"Yes, he was at school with father," I answer; and the moment I have given utterance to the abhorred formula I repent.
"At school with him ?" (speaking rather slowly, and looking at me, with a sort of flickering smile in lips and eyes).

"Oh, I see!" "What do you see ?" cry I, sharply.
"Nothing, nothing! I only meant to say I understand, I comprehend." "There is nothing to understand," reply I, brusquely, and rising.

"I am tired--I shall go home!" We walk back rather silently; there is nothing so trying to eyes and mind as picture-seeing, and I am fagged, and also indefinitely, yet certainly, cross.

As we reach the door of the Saxe, I hold out my hand.
"Now that we have come to the end of our walk," say I, "and that you cannot think that I am _hinting_ to you, I will tell you that I think it was very ill-mannered and selfish of you not to _insist_ on carrying _this_" (holding out the brown-paper parcel); "there is not _one_ of the boys--not even Bobby, whom we always call so rough, who would have _dreamed_ of letting a lady carry a parcel for herself, when he was by to take it.