e, and the immediate renewal of hunting, in consequence of the
complete change in the weather.

"You ought to have had a good many snipe by the way, Gould," said one of
the guests. "They are always found in those water meadows of yours at
the end of a frost."

"My son and his young friend can tell you best about them," replied Mr
Gould. "I believe they have been out after them to-day."

"Ah! and what sport had you?" asked the inquirer, turning to young
Gould.

"Oh, I got five couple."

"And your friend?"

"I only shot one," said Crawley with an uneasy laugh.

"Come, I say, Lionel," said Clarissa Gould to her brother, "I am not
going to have my cousin Bellefleur treated in this manner. You are a
nice sort of host to leave your guest the worst of the shooting."

"He had as many shots as I had," said young Gould, whose desire of self-
glorification smothered any soupcon of good taste which he might have
acquired, "only he missed them all."

"Indeed, yes," said Crawley, concealing his sense of humiliation in the
very best way; "why I fired two barrels at one snipe before Gould killed
it for me. I am a perfect novice at all field sports."

"Ah!" observed the first inquirer, "I know I fired away a pound of lead
before I touched a snipe when I first began. But what a lot of them
there must have been if you killed five couple, Lionel."

"I do not think I should care for shooting if I were a man," said
Clarissa to Crawley. "But hunting, now, I should be wild about. I hunt
sometimes, but only with the harriers. Mama will not let me go out with
the foxhounds, and they meet so far off that I cannot fall in with them
by accident, for there is no cover near here. But the harriers are to
go out the day after to-morrow, if the frost does not return, and I am
looking forwards to a good gallop. Are you fond of hunting?"

"I know that I should be," replied Crawley, "but I do not own a horse,
and never have a chance of it."

"Oh, well, we will mount you; I think Daisy will be quite up to your
weight, Sir Robert certainly would, but Daisy is the nicest to ride."

After dinner there was music, and Crawley was asked if he could sing.
There was no backing out, for young Gould had bragged about his friend's
voice, which was indeed a good one though untrained. But he only sang
_Tubal Cain_, _Simon the Cellarer_, and one or two others of that sort,
of which the music was not forthcoming. At last, however, Julia Gould,