"But I can't walk on cold stones with thin slippers, can I?" began Rose, showing a little white foot.
"You needn't, for—there you are, my lady;" and, unceremoniously picking her up, Mac landed her in the carriage before she could say a word.
"What an escort!" she exclaimed in comic dismay, as she rescued her delicate dress from the rug in which he was about to tuck her up like a mummy.
"It's 'only Mac,' so don't mind," and he cast himself into an opposite corner, with the air of a man who had nerved himself to the accomplishment of many painful duties, and was bound to do them or die.
"But gentlemen don't catch up ladies like bags of meal, and poke them into carriages in this way. It is evident that you need looking after, and it is high time I undertook your society manners. Now, do mind what you are about, and don't get yourself or me into a scrape if you can help it," besought Rose, feeling that on many accounts she had gone farther and fared worse.
"I'll behave like a Turveydrop: see if I don't."
Mac's idea of the immortal Turveydrop's behavior seemed to be a peculiar one; for, after dancing once with his cousin, he left her to her own devices, and soon forgot all about her in a long conversation with Professor Stumph, the learned geologist. Rose did not care; for one dance proved to her that that branch of Mac's education had been sadly neglected, and she was glad to glide smoothly about with Steve, though
