t, so that they might discourse of their loves and digest their
dinner. Tom had all the morning been waiting for this happy moment; he
had counted on the expansive effect of a full stomach to thaw his
Liza's coldness, and he had pictured himself sitting on the grass with
his back against the trunk of a spreading chestnut-tree, with his arm
round his Liza's waist, and her head resting affectionately on his
manly bosom. Liza, too, had foreseen the separation into couples after
dinner, and had been racking her brains to find a means of getting out
of it.

'I don't want 'im slobberin' abaht me,' she said; 'it gives me the
sick, all this kissin' an' cuddlin'!'

She scarcely knew why she objected to his caresses; but they bored her
and made her cross. But luckily the blessed institution of marriage
came to her rescue, for Jim and his wife naturally had no particular
desire to spend the afternoon together, and Liza, seeing a little
embarrassment on their part, proposed that they should go for a walk
together in the forest.

Jim agreed at once, and with pleasure, but Tom was dreadfully
disappointed. He hadn't the courage to say anything, but he glared at
Blakeston. Jim smiled benignly at him, and Tom began to sulk. Then
they began a funny walk through the woods. Jim tried to go on with
Liza, and Liza was not at all disinclined to this, for she had come to
the conclusion that Jim, notwithstanding his 'cheek', was not ''alf a
bad sort'. But Tom kept walking alongside of them, and as Jim slightly
quickened his pace so as to get Liza on in front, Tom quickened his,
and Mrs. Blakeston, who didn't want to be left behind, had to break
into a little trot to keep up with them. Jim tried also to get Liza
all to himself in the conversation, and let Tom see that he was out in
the cold, but Tom would break in with cross, sulky remarks, just to
make the others uncomfortable. Liza at last got rather vexed with him.

'Strikes me you got aht of bed the wrong way this mornin',' she said
to him.

'Yer didn't think thet when yer said you'd come aht with me.' He
emphasized the 'me'.

Liza shrugged her shoulders.

'You give me the 'ump,' she said. 'If yer wants ter mike a fool of
yerself, you can go elsewhere an' do it.'

'I suppose yer want me ter go awy now,' he said angrily.

'I didn't say I did.'

'Arright, Liza, I won't stay where I'm not wanted.' And turning on
his heel he marched off, striking through the underwood into the midst