arties concerned. Where is
he, old girl?'

'Upstairs in bed, daddy, with the whooping-cough something horrid.'

'Wot a infant!' commented the groom proudly. 'I never see such a
offspring for his age--never. Whoopin'-cough something horrid? Well,
well!'

For a full minute he reflected with such apparent satisfaction on his
son and heir's vulnerability to human ailments that there is no telling
when he would have left off, if his reverie had not been broken by his
wife placing a pipe in his hands and a bowl on the table.

'It was always waiting on you, daddy,' said the good woman. 'I sez to
Wellington, "That's his favourite, it is, and we'll always have it
ready for him when he comes home."'

Without any display of emotion or undue haste, the old groom filled the
pipe, lit it, drew a long breath of smoke, and slowly blew it into the
air, regarding his good partner throughout with a look that clearly
showed the importance he attached to the experiment.

He took a second puff, raised his eyes from hers to the ceiling, and
his broad face crinkled into a grin, the like of which his wife had
never seen before on his countenance.

'Old girl,' he said, 'when I sees you first I sez, "There's the filly
for my money;" and so you was. And, by Criky! you and me hevn't
reached the last jump yet--no, sir. Give me a kiss. . . .
Thar--that's werry "bon," as them queer-spoke Frenchies would say. M'
dear, I hev some nooz for _you_ now.'

He puffed tantalisingly at the pipe, and surveyed his wife's intense
curiosity with studied approbation.

'When Milord come to see me last week,' he said, measuring the words
slowly, 'he tells me as how he won't go for to hev no more hosses, and
conseckens o' me bein' all bunged up by them sausage-eaters, he sez as
how would I like to be the landlord o' "The Hares and Fox" in the
village, him havin' bought the same, and would I go for to tell you as
a surprise, likewise and sim'lar?'

'Heavenly hope!' cried the good woman, bursting into tears; 'if that
ain't marvellous grand!'

'That,' said Mathews, beckoning for her to hand him his crutches, 'is
what Milord has done for you and me. And, missus, as long as there's a
drop in the cellar none o' the soldier-lads in the village will go for
to want a pint o' bitter nohow. Now, old girl, if you'll give a leg up
we'll go and see how the infant is lookin'.'

II.

A few days later, in the chapel decked with flowers, the marriage of
Sel