associations the turf obliges to those who live by it."

"Well, I 'll give it up; there's my word on't I 'll never put my foot in
Tattersall's yard again. I 'll take my name off the Turf Club,--is that
enough?"

She could not help smiling at the honest zeal of this sacrifice; but the
smile had none of the scorn her features displayed before.

"Oh, Lizzy!" cried he, enthusiastically, "if I was sure we could just
live on here as we are doing,--never leave this little valley, nor see
more of the world than we do daily,--I'd not exchange the life for a
duke's fortune--"

"And Holt's stable," added she, laughing. "Come, you must not omit the
real bribe."

He laughed heartily at this sally, and owned it was the grand
temptation.

"You are certainly very good-tempered, Annesley," said she, after a
pause.

"I don't think I am," said he, half piqued, for he thought the remark
contained a sort of disparagement of that sharpness on which he chiefly
prided himself. "I am very hot at times."

"I meant that you bore with great good-humor from me what you might, if
so disposed, have fairly enough resented as an impertinence. What do I,
what could I, know of that play-world of which you spoke? How gentlemen
and men of fashion regard these things must needs be mysteries to me;
I only wished to imply that you might make some better use of your
faculties, and that knowledge of life you possess, than in conning over
a betting-book or the 'Racing Calendar.'"

"So I mean to do. That's exactly what I 'm planning."

"Here's the soup cooling and the sherry getting hot," cried Grog, as
he shouted from the window of the little inn, and waved his napkin to
attract their notice.

"There's papa making a signal to us," said Lizzy; "did you suspect it
was so late?"

"Seven o'clock, by Jove!" cried Beecher, as he gave her his hand to
cross the stepping-stones. "What a fuss he 'll make about our keeping
the dinner back!"

[Illustration: 284]

"I have eaten all the caviare and the pickles, and nearly finished a
bottle of Madeira, waiting for you," said Grog; "so, no dressing, but
come in at once."

"Oh, dearest Lizzy!" cried Beecher, as they gained the porch, "just one
word,--only one word,--to make me the happiest fellow in the world or
the most miserable." But Lizzy sprang up the stairs, and was in her room
almost ere his words were uttered.

"If I had bad but another moment," muttered Beecher to himself, "just
one moment more,