forward to a little nourishment."

"Dinner, my ladies!" cried the well-appointed Welldrum, throwing open
the door as only such a man can do, while cleverly accomplishing the
necessary bow, which he clinched on such occasions with a fine smack of
his lips.

"Go and tell Mr. Lancelot, if you please, that we are waiting for him."
A great point was made, but not always effected, of having Master Pet,
in very gorgeous attire, to lead his aunt into the dining-room. It
was fondly believed that this impressed him with the elegance and nice
humanities required by his lofty position and high walk in life. Pet
hated this performance, and generally spoiled it by making a face over
his shoulder at old Welldrum, while he strode along in real or mock awe
of Aunt Philippa.

"If you please, my ladies," said the butler now, choosing Mrs. Carnaby
for his eyes to rest on, "Mr. Lancelot beg to be excoosed of dinner. His
head is that bad that he have gone for open air."

"Snow-headache is much in our family; Eliza, you remember how our dear
father used to feel it." With these words Mistress Yordas led her sister
to the dining-room; and they took good care to say nothing more about it
before the officious Welldrum.

Pet meanwhile was beginning to repent of his cold and lonely venture.
For a mile or two the warmth of his mind and the glow of exercise
sustained him; and he kept on admiring his own courage till his feet
began to tingle. "Insie will be bound to kiss me now; and she never will
be able to laugh at me again," he said to himself some fifty times.
"I am like the great poet who describes the snow; and I have got some
cherry-brandy." He trudged on very bravely; but his poor dear toes at
every step grew colder. Out upon the moor, where he was now, no shelter
of any kind encouraged him; no mantlet of bank, or ridge, or brush-wood,
set up a furry shiver betwixt him and the tatterdemalion wind. Not even
a naked rock stood up to comfort a man by looking colder than himself.

But in truth there was no severe cold yet; no depth of snow, no
intensity of frost, no splintery needles of sparkling drift; but only
the beginning of the wintry time, such as makes a strong man pick his
feet up, and a healthy boy start an imaginary slide. The wind, however,
was shrewd and searching, and Lancelot was accustomed to a warming-pan.
Inside his waistcoat he wore a hare-skin, and his heart began to give
rapid thumps against it. He knew that he was goin