s
ill-gotten gains, before and since, he came into possession of them.

During the remainder of his stay in the county, his house was open to
sportsmen of every grade. His racers, hunters, hounds, and good dinners
were points of union to all the sporting men of the county; and Captain
Dancy, Mr Deep, Sir Samuel Spendall, the Simpsons, Madame Duvet, and
many others, again adorned Plas Abertewey. Races and race-balls,
steeple-chases, and steeple-chase balls, hunts, and hunt-balls, took
Howel, Netta, and his friends from place to place, and he and his horses
soon became celebrated. The latter ran at all the races. He was a good
rider, and rode himself in several steeple-chases; in short, he was
declared to be 'a capital fellow!' and one who, if he would only remain
in the county, would raise the sporting interest throughout it. As
'blessings brighten as they take their flight,' so Howel's popularity
reached its zenith just as he resigned Abertewey to Colonel Vaughan, and
went, with his wife and child, abroad for a few months.

As Freda foretold, bells rang, bonfires blazed, and cannons fired, when
the respective owners of Glanyravon and Abertewey brought home their
respective brides, which took place in due course. If anybody thought of
Miss Gwynne, it was to comment loudly on her conduct in leaving her
home, because her father chose to marry again, and lowering herself and
her position by going to reside with her former governess, the wife of a
curate in the East End of London. Some few sympathised with her, but the
greater number laughed at Mr Gwynne, admired Lady Nugent's tact, and
blamed Freda.

Those, also, who discussed Colonel Vaughan, as everybody did, thought
him a wise man to marry a woman who could at once clear his estate, and
enable him to live upon it as his fathers had never lived before him,
and welcomed him home with great ardour, and a regular volley of dinner
parties.

Thus Lady Mary Nugent and her daughter, with their various worldly and
external advantages, and Colonel Vaughan, with his _savoir faire_, had
done more for themselves than Freda or Gladys, or Owen or Rowland could
have done, with their honesty of purpose, beauty, and intelligence, in a
worldly point of view, I would be understood to mean.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE SPENDTHRIFT.

We must now run rapidly through the next six years of Howel and Netta's
career.

After spending nearly a year abroad, where Howel amused himself,