st meets of the Pytchley and the Warwickshire, and not
out of reach of the Cottesmore and Belvoir. It is much more like a
Lincolnshire Wolds farmhouse than an inn. The guests are regular
_habitues_; you find yourself in a sort of fox-hunting clubhouse, in a
large, snug dining-room; not the least like Albert Smith's favourite
aversion, a coffee-room; you have a first-rate English dinner,
undeniable wine, real cream with your tea, in a word, all the comforts
and most of the luxuries of town and country life combined. If needful,
Tom Percival will provide you with a flyer for every day in the week,
and you will be sure to meet with one or two guests, able and willing,
ready to canter with you to cover, explain the chart of the country,
and, if you are in the first year of boots and breeches, show you as
Squire Warburton sings, how "To sit down in your saddle and put his head
straight."

The meet, within four miles of the inn, was in a park by the side of a
small firwood plantation. Punctual to a minute, up trotted Sebright on a
compact, well-bred chestnut in blooming condition, the whips equally
well mounted on thoroughbreds, all dressed in ample scarlet coats and
dark cord breeches--a style of dress in much better taste than the
tight, short dandified costume of the fashionable hunt, where the
huntsman can scarcely be distinguished from the "swell."

Of the Earl's family there were present a son and daughter, and three
grandsons, beautiful boys, in Lincoln green loose jackets, brown cord
breeches, black boots, and caps; of these, the youngest, a fair, rosy
child of about eight or nine years old, on a thorough-bred chestnut
pony, was all day the admiration of the field; he dashed along full of
genuine enthusiasm, stopping at nothing practicable.

Amongst others present was a tall, lithe, white-haired,
white-moustached, dignified old gentleman, in scarlet and velvet cap,
riding forward on a magnificent gray horse, who realised completely the
poetical idea of a nobleman. This was the Marquess of H----, known well
forty years ago in fashionable circles, when George IV. was Prince, now
popular and much esteemed as a country gentleman and improving landlord.
There was also Mr. H----, an M.P., celebrated, before he settled into
place and "ceased his hum," as a hunter of bishops--a handsome, dark
man, in leathers and patent Napoleons; with his wife on a fine bay
horse, who rode boldly throughout the day.

In strange countries