Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/23

Rh oh! what a woman mamma is! Providence must have been hard up for ideas when it produced my lady. How tiresome!"

These last words were addressed to a bramble that had caught in her skirt. She shook her gown impatiently and walked on. The bramble still adhered and dragged. "What a nuisance," said Arminell, and she whisked her skirt round and endeavoured to pick off the brier, but ineffectually. "Let me assist you," said a voice; and in a moment a young man leaped the park wall, stepped on the end of the bramble, and said, "Now, if you please, walk on, Miss Inglett."

Arminell took a few steps and was free. She turned, and with a slight bow said, "I thank you, Mr. Saltren." Then, with a smile, "I wish I could get rid of all tribulations as easily." "And find them whilst they cling as light. You are perhaps not aware that 'tribulation' derives from the Latin tribulus, a bramble." "So well aware was I that I perpetrated the joke which you have spoiled by threshing it. Why are you not at church, Mr. Saltren, listening for the rector's pronunciation of the Greek names of St. Paul's acquaintances, in the hopes of detecting a false quantity among them?"

"Because Giles has a cold, and I stay at my lady's desire to read the psalms and lessons to him." "I wonder whether schooling Giles is as intolerable as taking Sunday class; if it be, you have my grateful sympathy." "Your sympathy, Miss Inglett, will relieve me of many a tribulus which adheres to my robe." "Is Giles a stupid boy and troublesome pupil?"

"Not at all. My troubles are not connected with my little pupil."