enthusiastic. After a while, too, he made matters
worse, for about the end of March he did another very foolish thing.
He almost consented to buy an expensive horse from Sowerby--an animal
which he by no means wanted, and which, if once possessed, would
certainly lead him into further trouble. A gentleman, when he has a
good horse in his stable, does not like to leave him there eating
his head off. If he be a gig-horse, the owner of him will be keen to
drive a gig; if a hunter, the happy possessor will wish to be with a
pack of hounds.

"Mark," said Sowerby to him one day, when they were out together,
"this brute of mine is so fresh, I can hardly ride him; you are young
and strong; change with me for an hour or so." And then they did
change, and the horse on which Robarts found himself mounted went
away with him beautifully.

"He's a splendid animal," said Mark, when they again met.

"Yes, for a man of your weight. He's thrown away upon me;--too much
of a horse for my purposes. I don't get along now quite as well as
I used to do. He is a nice sort of hunter; just rising six, you
know." How it came to pass that the price of the splendid animal was
mentioned between them, I need not describe with exactness. But it
did come to pass that Mr. Sowerby told the parson that the horse
should be his for L130. "And I really wish you'd take him," said
Sowerby. "It would be the means of partially relieving my mind of a
great weight." Mark looked up into his friend's face with an air of
surprise, for he did not at the moment understand how this should be
the case.

"I am afraid, you know, that you will have to put your hand into your
pocket sooner or later about that accursed bill"--Mark shrank as the
profane words struck his ears--"and I should be glad to think that
you had got something in hand in the way of value."

"Do you mean that I shall have to pay the whole sum of L500?"

"Oh dear, no; nothing of the kind. But something I dare say you will
have to pay: if you like to take Dandy for a hundred and thirty, you
can be prepared for that amount when Tozer comes to you. The horse
is dog cheap, and you will have a long day for your money." Mark at
first declared, in a quiet, determined tone, that he did not want the
horse; but it afterwards appeared to him that if it were so fated
that he must pay a portion of Mr. Sowerby's debts, he might as well
repay himself to any extent within his power. It would be as well
perhaps tha