ined to me with a dry smile--"your
unwisdom at least was amiable, and--in short, sir, though you can be
infernally provoking, it has been a pleasure to serve you."

You may be sure that this did not lessen my contrition. We reached
London late that night; and here Mr. Romaine took leave of us. Business
waited for him at Amersham Place. After a few hours' sleep, Rowley woke
me to choose between two post-boys in blue jackets and white hats, and
two in buff jackets and black hats, who were competing for the honour of
conveying us as far as Barnet: and having decided in favour of the blue
and white, and solaced the buff and black with a _pourboire_, we pushed
forward once more.

We were now upon the Great North Road, along which the York mail rolled
its steady ten miles an hour to the wafted music of the guard's bugle; a
rate of speed which to the more Dorian mood of Mr. Rowley's flageolet, I
proposed to better by one-fifth. But first, having restored the lad to
his old seat beside me, I must cross-question him upon his adventures in
Edinburgh, and the latest news of Flora and her aunt, Mr. Robbie, Mrs.
McRankine, and the rest of my friends. It came out that Mr. Rowley's
surrender to my dear girl had been both instantaneous and complete. "She
_is_ a floorer, Mr. Anne. I suppose now, sir, you'll be standing up for
that knock-me-down kind of thing?"

"Explain yourself, my lad."

"Beg your pardon, sir, what they call love at first sight." He wore an
ingenuous blush and an expression at once shy and insinuating.

"The poets, Rowley, are on my side."

"Mrs. McRankine, sir----"

"The Queen of Navarre, Mr. Rowley----"

But he so far forgot himself as to interrupt. "It took Mrs. McRankine
years, sir, to get used to her first husband. She told me so."

"It took us some days, if I remember, to get used to Mrs. McRankine. To
be sure, her cooking----"

"That's what I say, Mr. Anne: it's more than skin-deep: and you'll
hardly believe me, sir--that is, if you didn't take note of it--but she
hev got an ankle."

He had produced the pieces of his flageolet, and was adjusting them
nervously, with a face red as a turkey-cock's wattles. I regarded him
with a new and incredulous amusement. That I served Mr. Rowley for a
glass of fashion and a mould of form was of course no new discovery: and
the traditions of body-service allow--nay, enjoin--that when the
gentleman goes a-wooing, the valet shall take a sympathetic wound. What
coul