thing, in short. Let us fancy him on a
journey, try and personate him; that would be the real way. Do you, for
instance, be Potts, and I 'll be his sister Susan. It will be the best
fun in the world, as we go along, to see everything, note everything,
and discuss everything Potts-wise."

"It would be too ridiculous, too absurd," said I, sick with anger.

"Not a bit; we are travelling with our old grandmother, we are making
the tour of Europe, and keeping our journal. Every evening we compare
notes of what we have seen. Pray do so; I 'm quite wild to try it."

"Really," said I, gravely, "it is a sort of trifling I should find it
very difficult to descend to. I see no reason, besides, to associate the
name of Potts with what you are pleased to call snobbery!"

"Could you help it? Could you, with all the best will in the world,
make Potts a man of distinction? Would n't he, in spite of you, be low,
vulgar, inquisitive, and obtrusive? Wouldn't you find him thrusting
himself forward, twenty times a day, into positions he had no right to?
Would n't the creature be a butt and a dupe--"

"Shall I own," burst I in, "that it gives me no exalted idea of your
taste, if I find that you select for ridicule a person on the mere
showing that his name is a monosyllable? And, once for all, I repudiate
all share in the scheme, and beg that I may not hear more of it."

I turned away as I said this. She resumed her book, and we spoke no more
to each other till we reached our halting-place for the night.

CHAPTER XVII. MRS. KEATS MOVES MY INDIGNATION

I am forced to the confession, Mrs. Keats was not what is popularly
called an agreeable old lady. She spoke seldom, she smiled never, and
she had a way of looking at you, a sort of cold astonishment, seeming
to say, "How is this? explain yourself," that kept me in a perpetual
terror.

My morning's tiff with Miss Herbert had neither been condoned nor
expiated when we sat down to dinner, as stiff a party of three as can
well be imagined; scarcely a word was interchanged as we ate.

"If you drink wine, sir, pray order it," said Mrs. Keats to me, in a
voice that might have suited an invitation to prussic acid.

"This little wine of the country is very pleasant, madam," said I,
courteously, "and I can even venture to recommend it."

"Not to me, sir. I drink water."

"Perhaps Miss Herbert will allow me?"

"Excuse me; I also drink water."

After a very dreary and painful pause,