urst, relieved the tedium of country life by
indulgence in divers amours. He was large-hearted, apparently, and
could not see a comely face without attempting intimate acquaintance
with the possessor of it. Among other damsels distinguished by his
attentions was his head forester's handsome daughter, whom, under
reiterated promise of marriage, he seduced. In due time she bore him a
child, ideally beautiful, according to the poet of the chap-book,
blessed with "red-gold hair and eyes of blue," and many charms of
infantile healthfulness. And yet, notwithstanding the noble looks of
her little son, the forester's daughter still remained unwed. For just
now came the Restoration, and along with it a notable change in the
outlook of Sir Thomas Calmady and many another lusty young gallant,
since the event in question not only restored Charles the Second to the
arms of his devoted subjects, but restored such loyal gentlemen to the
by no means too strait-laced society of town and court. Thence, some
few years later, Sir Thomas--amiably willing in all things to oblige
his royal master--brought home a bride, whose rank and wealth,
according to the censorious chap-book, were extensively in excess of
her youth and virtue.

Julius lingered a little in contemplation of the quaint wood-cut
representing the arrival of this lady at Brockhurst. Clothed in a
bottle-green bodice--very generously _decolletee_, her head adorned by
a portentous erection of coronet and feathers, a sanguine dab of colour
on her cheek, she craned a skinny neck out of the window of the family
coach. Apparently she was engaged in directing the movements of
persons--presumably footmen--clad in canary-coloured coats and armed
with long staves. With these last, they treated a female figure in blue
to, as it seemed, sadly rough usage. And the context informed Julius,
in jingling verse, how that poor Hagar, the forester's daughter,
inconveniently defiant of custom and of common sense, had stoutly
refused to be cast forth into the social wilderness, along with her
small Ishmael and a few pounds sterling as price of her honour and
content, until she had stood face to face with Sarah, the safely
church-wed, if none too reputable, wife. It informed him, further, how
the said small Ishmael--whether alarmed by the violence of my lady's
men-servants, or wanting merely, childlike, to welcome his returning
father--ran to the coach door and clambered on the step; whence, thanks
t