ave been very helpful to those ladies, of whom there
were many, who took the matter to heart.

The unpopularity of the engagement was considerably aggravated by the
extreme magnificence of the furs, presented by the bridegroom elect to
his _fiancee_, and worn by her at a meet of the hounds, which she
attended in her father's motor.

It might have been some consolation to the neighbourhood had it known
that those grey furs had been of the nature of a peace-offering, after
a rather acute difference of opinion on that point of settling down at
Coppinger's Court as opposed to going abroad. Larry had shelved it for
the present, and had, as he told himself, made good by the dint of the
furs. That had come out all right, but now, Larry, mounted on Joker,
and led in chains at Tishy's motor-wheel, found that among his former
allies of the hunt things were not as they once had been, and was not
pleased. Singularly enough, Judith alone was faithful found among the
faithless. She declared that Larry had been brutally and idiotically
treated, and that this engagement was the result, and justified all
that she had been saying for many past ages. When Larry appeared at
the Meet, his scalp-lock prominent among Miss Mangan's furs, Judith
alone of his former intimates met him with cordiality, condoled with
him over his election defeat with sympathy, and congratulated him on
his engagement with decorum.

"I felt it was only decent," she said later, to the friend to whom she
complacently recounted her effort, "after he had been kicked
downstairs by Papa, and booted out of the house by Christian, quite
without justification. I congratulated him warmly! I absolutely rode
up to the gorgeous Tishy and said civil things there too!"

"It was perfectly angelic of you!" said the friend.

"Quite the reverse, my dear!" said Judith, proudly. "But you see Bill
has the hounds, and anyhow, I like to prepare for all contingencies!"

For the rest, a chilly neutrality reigned at the Meet. Larry was
finding his official position of captive decidedly irksome. He wished
that Tishy would not call him by his name every time she spoke to him;
that she would not speak so loud; that this eternal jog to the covert
would end before the Day of Judgment; finally, that he had stayed at
home. He saw the red-headed Cloherty, and, failing more congenial
society, joined him. But the red-headed Cloherty was crosser than any
of them, and what the devil was it to him wh