Whatever little embarrassment Lucy might feel, remembering her equestrian performance with Mr. Talboys and its cause, she showed none.  She began about the pony, and how kind of him it was to bring it.  “And yet,” said she, “if I had known, I would not have allowed you to take the trouble, for I have a pony here.”

Mr. Talboys was sorry for that, but he hoped she would ride his now and then, all the same.

“Oh, of course.  My pony here is very pretty.  But a new friend is not like an old friend.”

Mr. Talboys was gratified on more accounts than one by this speech.  It gave him a sense of security.  She had no friend about her now she had known as long as she had him, and those three months of constant intimacy placed him above competition.  His mind was at ease, and he felt he could pop with a certainty of success, and pop he would, too, without any unnecessary delay.

The party arrived in great content and delectation at the gates that led to the house.  “Stay!” said Mrs. Bazalgette; “you must come across the way, all of you.  Here is a view that all our guests are expected to admire.  Those, that cry out ‘Charming! beautiful!  Oh, I never!’ we take them in and make them comfortable.  Those that won’t or can’t ejaculate—­”

“You put them in damp beds,” said Mr. Fountain, only half in jest.

“Worse than that, sir—­we flirt with them, and disturb the placid current of their hearts forever and ever.  Don’t we, Lucy?”

“You know best, aunt,” said Lucy, half malice, half pout.  The others followed the gay lady, and, when the view burst, ejaculated to order.

But Mr. Fountain stood ostentatiously in the middle of the road, with his legs apart, like him of Rhodes.  “I choose the alternative,” cried he.  “Sooner than pretend I admire sixteen plowed fields and a hill as much as I do a lawn and flower-beds, I elect to be flirted, and my what do ye call ’em?—­my stagnant current—­turned into a whirlpool.”  Ere the laugh had well subsided, caused by this imitation of Hercules and his choice, he struck up again, “Good news for you, young gentleman; I smell a ball; here is a fiddle-case making for this hospitable mansion.”

“No,” said Mrs. Bazalgette, “I never ordered any musician to come here.”

A tall but active figure came walking light as a feather, with a large carpet-bag on his back, a boy behind carrying a violin-case.

Lucy colored and lowered her eyes, but never said a word.

The young man came up to the gate, and then Mr. Talboys recognized him.

He hesitated a single moment, then turned and came to the group and took off his hat to the ladies.  It was David Dodd!

CHAPTER XIV.

THE new guest’s manner of presenting himself with his stick over his shoulder, and his carpet-bag on his back, subjected him to a battery of stares from Kenealy, Talboys, Fountain, and abashed him sore.