He removed
from his lips the short corn-cob pipe he was smoking.
"I've just been looking at the new mare. She's a beauty. I know I
oughtn't to have got her, but she was going dirt cheap--and what can a
man do when he's offered a horse at a quarter its value?"
"Nothing, my dear Dick, save pay four times as much as he can afford."
"But we had to get a new beast," he argued seriously. "We can't go about
the country in a donkey-cart. If I hadn't bought one, Austin would, for
the sake of the family dignity--and I do like to feel independent of
Austin now and then."
"I wish you were entirely independent of Austin," said Viviette, walking
with him up the lawn.
"I can't, so long as I stay here doing nothing. But if I went out to
Canada or New Zealand, as I want to do, who would look after my mother?
I'm tied by the leg."
"I'd look after mother," said Viviette. "And you'd write me nice long
letters, saying how you were getting on, and I would send you nice
little bulletins, and we should all be very happy.
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