don't." This was Mrs. 
Ellison's attitude towards her husband's 
whole family, who on their part never had 
been able to account for the colonel's 
choice except as a joke, and sometimes 
questioned if he had not perhaps carried 
the joke too far ; though they loved her 
too, for a kind of passionate generosity and 
sublime, inconsequent unselfishness about 
her. 

"What I wordnetdesire to know, now,** said the 
colonel, as soon as Kitty would let him, 
** and I '11 try to put it as politely as I can, 
is simply this : What made the first part of 
your walk so disagreeable ? You didn't see 
a wedding party, or a child rescued from a 
horrible death, or a man saved from drown- 
ing, or anything of that kind, did you ? " 

But the colonel would have done better 



ABBUTON MAKES HIMSELF AGREEABLE. 131 

not to say anything. His wife was made 
peevish by his persistence, and the loss of 
the harmless  upon which she had 
counted in the history of Kitty*s walk with 
Mr. Arbuton. Kitty herself would not 
laugh again ; in fact she grew serious and 
thoughtful, and presently took up a book, 
and after that went to her own room, where 
she stood a while