comitants of an awkward state, distressed him. While
suburban life, that living in little rows of slate-roofed houses so
lamentably similar that no man of individual taste could bear to see
them, he much disliked. Yet, in spite of his strong prejudice in favour
of country-house life, he was not a rich man, his income barely exceeding
ten thousand a year.

The first shooting-party of the season, devoted to spinneys and the
outlying coverts, had been, as usual, made to synchronise with the last
Newmarket Meeting, for Newmarket was within an uncomfortable distance of
Worsted Skeynes; and though Mr. Pendyce had a horror of gaming, he liked
to figure there and pass for a man interested in sport for sport's sake,
and he was really rather proud of the fact that his son had picked up so
good a horse as the Ambler promised to be for so little money, and was
racing him for pure sport.

The guests had been carefully chosen. On Mrs. Winlow's right was Thomas
Brandwhite (of Brown and Brandwhite), who had a position in the financial
world which could not well be ignored, two places in the country, and a
yacht. His long, lined face, with very heavy moustaches, wore habitually
a peevish look. He had retired from his firm, and now only sat on the
Boards of several companies. Next to him was Mrs. Hussell Barter, with
that touching look to be seen on the faces of many English ladies, that
look of women who are always doing their duty, their rather painful duty;
whose eyes, above cheeks creased and withered, once rose-leaf hued, now
over-coloured by strong weather, are starry and anxious; whose speech is
simple, sympathetic, direct, a little shy, a little hopeless, yet always
hopeful; who are ever surrounded by children, invalids, old people, all
looking to them for support; who have never known the luxury of breaking
down--of these was Mrs. Hussell Barter, the wife of the Reverend Hussell
Barter, who would shoot to-morrow, but would not attend the race-meeting
on the Wednesday. On her other hand was Gilbert Foxleigh, a lean-flanked
man with a long, narrow head, strong white teeth, and hollow, thirsting
eyes. He came of a county family of Foxleighs, and was one of six
brothers, invaluable to the owners of coverts or young, half-broken
horses in days when, as a Foxleigh would put it, "hardly a Johnny of the
lot could shoot or ride for nuts." There was no species of beast, bird,
or fish, that he could not and did not destroy with eq