ny rate, now fall back upon Miss Puffle. And he thought that nothing
would have induced Miss Thoroughbung to go off with one of the carters
from the brewery. Whatever faults she might have, they did not lie in
that direction. Champagne and ponies were, as faults, less deleterious.

Miss Puffle gone off with young Tazlehurst,--a lady of fifty, with a
young man of twenty-five! and she the reputed heiress of Snickham Manor!
It was a comfort to him as he remembered that Snickham Manor had been
bought no longer ago than by the father of the present owner. The
Prospers been at Buston ever since the time of George the First. You
cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. He had been ever assuring
himself of that fact, which was now more of a fact than ever. And fifty
years old! It was quite shocking. With a steady middle-aged man like
himself, and with the approval of her family, marriage might have been
thought of. But this harum-scarum young tenant's son, who was in no
respect a gentleman, whose only thought was of galloping over hedges and
ditches, such an idea showed a state of mind which--well, absolutely
disgusted him. Mr. Prosper, because he had grown old himself, could not
endure to think that others, at his age, should retain a smack of their
youth. There are ladies besides Miss Puffle who like to ride across the
country with a young man before them, or perhaps following, and never
think much of their fifty years.

But the news certainly brought to him a great change of feelings, so
that the letter to which he had devoted the preceding afternoon was put
back into the letter-case, and was never finished. And his mind
immediately recurred to Miss Thoroughbung, and he bethought himself that
the objection which he felt was, perhaps, in part frivolous. At any
rate, she was a better woman than Miss Puffle. She certainly would run
after no farmer's son. Though she she might be fond of champagne, it
was, he thought, chiefly for other people. Though she was ambitious of
ponies, the ambition might be checked. At any rate, she could pay for
her own ponies, whereas Mr. Puffle was a very hale old man of seventy.
Puffle, he told himself, had married young, and might live for the next
ten years, or twenty. To Mr. Prosper, whose imagination did not fly far
afield, the world afforded at present but two ladies. These were Miss
Puffle and Miss Thoroughbung, and as Miss Puffle had fallen out of the
running, there seemed to be a walk-ov