acquiescingly--

"Yes, it _is_ rather hard, is it not?"

"Forty-one--forty-two--yes, forty-two years since I first saw him," he
continues, reflectively, "running about in short, stiff, white
petticoats and bare legs, and going bawling to his mother, because he
tumbled up those steps to the hall-door, and cut his nose open."

I lift my face out of my muff, in which, for the sake of warmth, I have
been hiding it, and, opening my mouth, give vent to a hearty and
undutiful roar of laughter.

"Cut his nose open!" repeat I, indistinctly. "How pleased he must have
been, and what sort of a nose was it? already hooked? It never _could_
have been the conventional button, _that_ I am sure of; _yours_ was, I
dare say, but _his_--_never._ Good Heavens!" (with a sudden change of
tone, and disappearance of mirth) "here he is! Come to look for you, no
doubt! I--I--think I may go now, may not I?"

"Go!" repeats he, looking at me with unfeigned wonder. "Why? It is more
likely _you_ that he has missed, _you_, who are no doubt his daily
companion."

"Not quite daily," I answer, with a fine shake of irony, which, by
reason of his small acquaintance with me, is lost on my friend. "Two,
you know, is company, and three none. Yes, if you do not mind, I think
it must be getting near luncheon-time. I will go."

So I disappear through the dry, knotted tussocks of the park grass.