tes_ at Gower, say what Chaumiere
compliments he might.

"Ma chere et charmante petite," expostulated Tom, "tes moues mutines
sont ravissantes, mais je t'avoue que je prefere tes----"

"Tais-toi, becasse!" cried Justine, giving him a blow with her parasol,
and going off into what she would have called _eclats de rire_.

"Mais ecoute-moi, Justine," whispered Tom, piqued by her perversity; "je
raffole de toi! je t'adore, sur ma parole! je----Hallo! what the devil's
the matter? Good gracious! Deuce take it!"

Well might Tom call on his Satanic Majesty to explain what met his eyes
as he gave vent to all three ejaculations and maledictions. No less a
sight than the carriage-door flying violently open, Belle descending
with a violent impetus, his face crimson, and his hat in his hand,
clearing the hedge at a bound, plunging up to his ankles in mud on the
other side of it, and starting across country at the top of his speed,
rushing frantically straight over the heavy grass-land as if he had just
escaped from Hanwell, and the whole hue and cry of keepers and policemen
was let loose at his heels.

"Good Heavens! By Jove! Belle, Belle, I say, stop! Are you mad? What's
happened? What's the row? I say--the devil!"

But to his coherent but very natural exclamations poor Tom received no
answer. Justine was screaming with laughter, the postilion was staring,
Perkins swearing, Belle, flying across the country at express speed,
rapidly diminishing into a small black dot in the green landscape, while
from inside the carriage, from Geraldine, from the deserted bride, peals
of laughter, loud, long, and uproarious, rang out in the summer
stillness of the early morning.

"By Jupiter! but this is most extraordinary. The deuce is in it. Are
they both gone stark staring mad?" asked Tom of his Cuba, or the
blackbirds, or the hedge-cutter afar off, or anything or anybody that
might turn out so amiable as to solve his problem for him.

No reply being given him, however, Tom could stand it no longer. Down he
sprang, jerked the door open again, and put his head into the carriage.

"Hallo, old boy, done green, eh? Pity 'tisn't the 1st of April!" cried
Geraldine, with renewed screams of mirth from the interior.

"Eh? What? What did you say, Miss Vane?" ejaculated Gower, fairly
staggered by this extraordinary answer of a young girl, a lady, and a
forsaken bride.

"What did I say, my dear fellow? Why, that you're done most preciously,
and