her feet was dearer
to her than lives, more stainless, but less nobly won.

OUR WAGER.

OUR WAGER;

OR,

HOW THE MAJOR LOST AND WON.

I

INTRODUCES MAJOR TELFER OF THE 50TH DASHAWAY HUSSARS.

The softest of lounging-chairs, an unexceptionable hubble-bubble bought
at Benares, the last _Bell's Life_, the morning papers, chocolate milled
to a T, and a breakfast worthy of Francatelli,--what sensible man can
ask more to make him comfortable? All these was my chum, Hamilton
Telfer, Major (50th Dashaway Hussars), enjoying, and yet he was in a
frame of mind anything but mild and genial.

"The deuce take the whole sex!" said he, stroking his moustache
savagely. "They're at the bottom of all the mischief going. The idea of
my father at seventy-five, with hair as white as that poodle's, making
such a fool of himself, when here am I, at six-and-thirty, unmarried;
it's abominable, it's disgusting. A girl of twenty, taking in an old man
of his age, for the sake of his money----"

"But are you sure, Telfer," said I, "that the affair's really on the
tapis?"

"Sure! Yes," said the Major, with immeasurable disgust. "I never saw her
till last night, but the governor wrote no end of rhapsodies about her,
and as I came upon them he was taking leave of her, holding her hand in
his, and saying, 'I may write to you, may I not?' and the young
hypocrite lifted her eyes so bewitchingly, 'Oh yes, I shall long so much
to hear from you!' She colored when she saw me--well she might! If she
thinks she'll make a fool of my father, and reign paramount at Torwood,
give me a mother-in-law sixteen years younger than myself, and fill the
house and cumber the estates with a lot of wretched little brats, she'll
find herself mistaken, for I'll prevent it, if I live."

"Don't be too sure of that," said I. "From what I know of Violet
Tressillian, she's not the sort of girl to lure her quarry in vain."

"Of course she'll try hard," answered Telfer. "She comes of a race that
always were poor and proud; she's an orphan, and hasn't a sou, and to
catch a man like my father worth 15,000_l._ a year, with the surety of a
good dower and jointure house whenever he die, is one of the best things
that could chance to her; but I'll be shot if she ever shall manage it."

"_Nous verrons._ I bet you my roan filly Calceolaria against your colt
Jockeyclub that before Christmas is out Violet Tressillian will be
Violet Telfer."

"Done!" cried