r days a week, and he could afford to keep horses
for her. She never flirted, and wanted no one to open gates. Tom
Spooner himself was not always so forward as he used to be; but his
wife was always there and would tell him all that he did not see
himself. And she was a good housewife, taking care that nothing
should be spent lavishly, except upon the stable. Of him, too, and of
his health, she was careful, never scrupling to say a word in season
when he was likely to hurt himself, either among the fences or among
the decanters. "You ain't so young as you were, Tom. Don't think of
doing it." This she would say to him with a loud voice when she would
find him pausing at a fence. Then she would hop over herself and he
would go round. She was "quite a providence to him," as her mother,
old Mrs. Leatherside, would say.

She was hardly the woman that one would have expected to meet as
a friend in the drawing-room of Lady Chiltern. Lord Chiltern was
perhaps a little rough, but Lady Chiltern was all that a mother, a
wife, and a lady ought to be. She probably felt that some little
apology ought to be made for Mrs. Spooner. "I hope you like hunting,"
she said to Silverbridge.

"Best of all things," said he, enthusiastically.

"Because you know this is Castle Nimrod, in which nothing is allowed
to interfere with the one great business of life."

"It's like that; is it?"

"Quite like that. Lord Chiltern has taken up hunting as his duty in
life, and he does it with his might and main. Not to have a good day
is a misery to him;--not for himself but because he feels that he is
responsible. We had one blank day last year, and I thought that he
never would recover it. It was that unfortunate Trumpington Wood."

"How he will hate me."

"Not if you will praise the hounds judiciously. And then there is
a Mr. Spooner coming here to-night. He is the first-lieutenant. He
understands all about the foxes, and all about the farmers. He has
got a wife."

"Does she understand anything?"

"She understands him. She is coming too. They have not been married
long, and he never goes anywhere without her."

"Does she ride?"

"Well; yes. I never go out myself now because I have so much of it
all at home. But I fancy she does ride a good deal. She will talk
hunting too. If Chiltern were to leave the country I think they ought
to make her master. Perhaps you'll think her rather odd; but really
she is a very good woman."

"I am sure I shal