s there; and, as we keep the hounds, I can promise
you some good hunting with the Harkaway."

"I shall be delighted," said I, who, being in the ---- Lancers, had been
chained by the leg at Kensington the whole year, and, of all the woes
the most pitiable, had not been able to get leave for either the 12th or
the 1st; but while my chums were shooting among the turnips, or stalking
royals in Blackmount Forest, I had been tied to town, a solitary unit in
Pall-Mall, standing on the forsaken steps of the U. S., or pacing my
hack through the dreary desert of Hyde Park--like Macaulay's New
Zealander gazing on the ruins of London Bridge.

"Very well," continued Vivian, "come down with me next week, and you can
send your horses with Steevens and my stud. The governor could mount you
well enough, but I never hunt with so much pleasure as when I'm on Qui
Vive; so I dare say you, like me, prefer your own horses. I only hope we
shan't have a confounded 'black frost;' but we must take our chance of
the weather. I think you'll like my sisters; they're just about half my
age. Lots of children came in between, but were providentially nipped in
the bud."

"Are they pretty?"

"Can't say, really; I'm too used to them to judge. I can't make love to
them, so I never took the trouble to criticise them; but we've always
been a good-looking race, I believe. I tell you who's staying
there--that girl we met in Toronto. Do you remember her--Cecil St.
Aubyn?"

"I should say I did. How did she get here?"

"She's come to live with her aunt, Mrs. Coverdale. You know that
over-dressed widow who lives in Hyde Park gardens, and, when she can't
afford Brighton, shuts the front shutters, lives in the back
drawing-room, and says, 'Not at home to callers?' St. Aubyn is as poor
as a rat, so I suppose he was glad to send Cecil here; and the Coverdale
likes to have somebody who'll draw men to her parties, which I'm sure
her champagne will never do. It's the most unblushing gooseberry ever
ticketed 'Veuve Clicquot.'"

"'Pon my life, I'm delighted to hear it," said I. "The St. Aubyn's
superb eyes will make the gooseberry go down. Men in Canada would have
swallowed cask-washings to get a single waltz with her. All Toronto
went mad on that score. You admired her, too, old fellow, only you
weren't with her long enough for such a stoic as you are to boil up into
anything warmer."

"Oh yes, I thought her extremely pretty, but I thought her a little
flirt, n