He opened his snuff-box, and took a leisurely pinch. “Excellent! I will take you there with pleasure.”

“Thank you!” she said, bestowing a brilliant smile upon him.

“And hand you into the care of whoever it is who is no doubt awaiting you,” continued Sir Gareth amiably.

She looked to be a good deal daunted, and said, after a pregnant moment: “Well, I don’t think you should do that, because I daresay they will be late.”

“Then I will remain with you until they arrive.”

“They might be very late!”

“Or they might not come at all,” he suggested. “Now, stop trying to hoax me with all these taradiddles, my child! I am much too old a hand to be taken in. No one is going to meet you in Huntingdon, and you may make up your mind to this: I am not going to leave you at the George, or the Fountain, or at any other inn.”

“Then I shan’t go with you,” said Amanda. “So then what will you do?”

“I’m not quite sure,” he replied. “I must either give you into the charge of the Parish officer here, or the Vicar.”

She cried hotly: “I won’t be given into anyone’s charge! I think you are the most interfering, odious person I ever met, and I wish you will go away and leave me to take care of myself, which I am very well able to do!”

“I expect you do,” he agreed. “And, I very much fear, I am just as stuffy as your uncles, which is a very lowering reflection.”

“If you knew the circumstances, I am persuaded you wouldn’t spoil everything!” she urged.

“But I don’t know the circumstances,” he pointed out.

“Well—well—if I were to tell you that I am escaping from persecution—?”

“I shouldn’t believe you. If you are not running away from school, you must be running away from your home, and I conjecture that you are doing that because you’ve fallen in love with someone of whom your relations don’t approve. In fact, you are trying to elope, and if anyone is to meet you in Huntingdon it is the gentleman to whom—as you informed me—you are shortly to be married.”