appointment
which would enable you to marry; urging her to be firm in her refusal
of your abomination, Mr. Brown; hinting that a broken heart would be
premature, if not altogether superfluous, and giving her a few general
notions that the affair would end happily, without touching upon Lawless
at all."

"Perhaps it would be as well," replied Freddy; "at all events it will
add greatly to the fun of the thing."

"And let me tell you, that's a consideration by no means to be lost
sight of," put in Lawless, who had overheard the last remark.
"Depend upon it, it's a man's duty--partly to himself, partly to his
neighbour--never to miss an opportunity of recruiting his exhausted
and care-worn frame, and all that sort of thing, by enjoying a little
innocent recreation: '_nec semper_'--what do ye call it?--'_tendit
Apollo_,' eh?"

"That's quite my view of the case," said Freddy, whose elastic
spirits were fast recovering their accustomed buoyancy. "I hate the
dolefuls--Care killed a cat."

"If that's the worst thing Care ever did, I'll forgive her, eh?" said
Lawless, "for cats are horrid poaching varmints, and make awful havoc
among the young rabbits. Well, Fairlegh, have you made up your mind?"

"Yes," replied I, "I am at your service for this morning; but
understand, I merely go as a spectator of your prowess."

"As you like, man. I'll order the chestnuts--go and polish up a
little--and then for walking into Governor Coleman, and bowling out the
drysalter."

The chestnuts whirled us over to Hillingford in less than an hour.
Lawless, delighted at being allowed to put his project into execution,
was in wild spirits, and kept me in fits of laughter the whole way, by
his quaint remarks on men and things.

"Is the governor visible, John?" was his address to the ~429~~ footman
who answered the door, and who, apparently not being favoured by Nature
with any superfluous acuteness of intellect or sweetness of disposition,
merely stared sulkily in reply.

"The fellow's a fool," muttered Lawless, "and can't understand English.
Hark ye, sirrah," he continued, "is your master at home?"

As the hero of the shoulder-knot vouchsafed an affirmative reply to
this somewhat more intelligible query, we alighted, and were straightway
ushered into the drawing-room, where we found Mr. and Mrs. Coleman,
and, as Lawless afterwards expressed it, "a party unknown," who was
immediately, with much pomp and ceremony, introduced to us by the nam