poppies.

"That is something of which I have no intimate knowledge. A groom is
not supposed to turn his head when on the box unless spoken to. You
will readily understand that, Madam. I made a mistake in the number.
Mine was seventy-one, and I answered number seventeen. I was
confused."

"I dare say. Seventy-one," she mused, "It will be easy to verify
this, to find out whose carriage that was."

Mr. Robert recognized his mistake, but he saw no way to rectify it.
She stood silently gazing over his shoulder, into the fields beyond.

"Perhaps you can explain to me that remarkable episode at the
carriage door? I should be pleased to hear your explanation."

It hard come,--the very thing he had dreaded had come. He had hoped
that she would ignore it. "Madam, I can see that you have sent for me
out of curiosity only. If I offered any disrespect to you last night,
I pray you to forgive me. For, on my word of honor, it was innocently
done." He bowed, and even placed his hand on the knob of the door.

"Have a little patience. I prefer myself to forget that disagreeable
incident." The truth is, "on my word of honor," coming from a groom,
sounded strange in her ears; and she wanted to learn more about this
fellow. "Mr. Osborne, what were you before you became a groom?"

"I have not always been a groom, it is true, Madam. My past I prefer
to leave in obscurity. There is nothing in that past, however, of