to him.
But his intentions were equally good, and whenever he found that he
had forgotten them, it was matter of grief to him.

"My dear Monica," said he, "I beg your pardon. I don't in the least
mean to speak ill of the game. When I called it a rattletrap, I
merely meant that it was so for a man of my age. You know you always
forget that I an't a young man."

"I am quite sure you are not an old man, Wilfred," said she,
accepting the apology in her heart and smiling at him with the tear
still on her cheek.

"If I was five-and-twenty, or thirty," continued he, "I should like
nothing better than riding at the quintain all day."

"But you are not too old to hunt or to shoot," said she. "If you can
jump over a ditch and hedge, I am sure you could turn the quintain
round."

"But when I ride over the hedges, my dear--and it isn't very often I
do that--but when I do ride over the hedges, there isn't any bag of
flour coming after me. Think how I'd look taking the countess out to
breakfast with the back of my head all covered with meal."

Miss, Thorne said nothing further. She didn't like the allusion to
the countess. She couldn't be satisfied with the reflection that
the sports at Ullathorne should be interfered with by the personal
attentions necessary for a Lady De Courcy. But she saw that it was
useless for her to push the matter further. It was conceded that Mr.
Thorne was to be spared the quintain, and Miss Thorne determined to
trust wholly to a youthful knight of hers, an immense favourite, who,
as she often declared, was a pattern to the young men of the age and
an excellent sample of an English yeoman.

This was Farmer Greenacre's eldest son, who, to tell the truth, had
from his earliest years taken the exact measure of Miss Thorne's
foot. In his boyhood he had never failed to obtain from her apples,
pocket-money, and forgiveness for his numerous trespasses; and now in
his early manhood he got privileges and immunities which were equally
valuable. He was allowed a day or two's shooting in September; he
schooled the squire's horses; got slips of trees out of the orchard
and roots of flowers out of the garden; and had the fishing of the
little river altogether in his own hands. He had undertaken to come
mounted on a nag of his father's and show the way at the quintain
post. Whatever young Greenacre did the others would do after him.
The juvenile Lookalofts might stand aloof, but the rest of the youth
of Ullatho