“There is Miss Tickle,” he said, in a voice that was almost cadaverous.

“Miss Tickle is of course to come.  You said that from the very first moment when you made the offer.”

“Never!”

“Oh, Peter, how can you say so!” He shrunk visibly from the sound of his own Christian name.  But she determined to persevere.  The time must come when she should call him Peter, and why not commence the practice now, at once?  Lovers always do call each other Peter and Matilda.  She wasn’t going to stand any nonsense, and if he intended to marry her and use a large proportion of her fortune, Peter he should be to her.  “You did, Peter.  You know you told me how much attached you were to her.”

“I didn’t say anything about her coming with you.”

“Oh, Peter, how can you be so cruel?  Do you mean to say that you will deprive me of the friend of my youth?”

“At any rate, there shall never be a pony come into my yard!” He knew when he made this assertion that he was abandoning his objection to Miss Tickle.  She had called him cruel, and his conscience told him that if he received Miss Thoroughbung and refused admission to Miss Tickle he would be cruel.  Miss Tickle, for aught that he knew, might have been a friend of her youth.  At any rate, they had been constant companions for many years.  Therefore, as he had another solid ground on which to stand, he could afford to yield as to Miss Tickle.  But as he did so, he remembered that Miss Tickle had accused him of “keeping company,” and he declared to himself that it would be impossible to live in the same house with her.

“But Miss Tickle may come?” said Miss Thoroughbung.  Was the solid ground—­the rock, as he believed it to be, of the ponies, about to sink beneath his feet?  “Say that Miss Tickle may come.  I should be nothing without Miss Tickle.  You cannot be so hard-hearted as that.”

“I don’t see what is the good of talking about Miss Tickle till we have come to some settlement about the ponies.  You say that you must have the ponies.  To tell you the truth, Miss Thoroughbung, I don’t like any such word as ‘must.’  And a good many things have occurred to me.”

“What kind of things, deary?”

“I think you are inclined to be—­gay—­”

“Me! gay!”

“While I am sober, and perhaps a little grave in my manners of life.  I am thinking only of domestic happiness, while your mind is intent upon social circles.  I fear that you would look for your bliss abroad.”

“In France or Germany?”

“When I say abroad, I mean out of your own house.  There is perhaps some discrepancy of taste of which I ought earlier to have taken cognizance.”

“Nothing of the kind,” said Miss Thoroughbung.  “I am quite content to live at home and do not want to go abroad, either to France nor yet to any other English county.  I should never ask for anything, unless it be for a single month in London.”