afternoon.

Two seconds more, and Fred and Alex were speeding away together, and the
girls went up to put on their bonnets to walk and meet their elders at
Sutton Leigh. For once Beatrice let Henrietta be as slow as she pleased,
for she was willing to let as much of the visit as possible pass
before they arrived there. They walked along, merrily concocting their
arrangements for Monday evening, until at length they came to the gates
of Sutton Leigh, and already heard the shouts of triumph, the barking of
dogs, and the cackle of terrified poultry, which proclaimed that the war
was at its height.

"O! the glories of a rat hunt!" cried Beatrice. "Come, Henrietta, here
is a safe place whence to contemplate it, and really it is a sight not
to be lost."

Henrietta thought not indeed when she looked over a gate leading into
the farm-yard on the side opposite to the great old barn, raised on
a multitude of stone posts, a short ladder reaching to the wide doors
which were folded back so as to display the heaps of straw thrown
violently back and forward; the dogs now standing in attitudes of
ecstatic expectation, tail straight out, head bent forward, now
springing in rapture on the prey; the boys rushing about with their
huge sticks, and coming down now and then with thundering blows, the
labourers with their white shirt sleeves and pitchforks pulling down the
straw, Uncle Roger with a portentous-looking club in the thick of the
fight. On the ladder, cheering them on, stood grandpapa, holding little
Tom in his arms, and at the bottom, armed with small sticks, were
Charlie and Arthur, consoling themselves for being turned out of the
melee, by making quite as much noise as all those who were doing real
execution, thumping unmercifully at every unfortunate dead mouse or rat
that was thrown out, and charging fiercely at the pigs, ducks, and geese
that now and then came up to inspect proceedings, and perhaps, for such
accidents will occur in the best regulated families, to devour a share
of the prey.

Beatrice's first exclamation was, "O! if papa was but here!"

"Nothing can go on without him, I suppose," said Henrietta. "And yet, is
this one of his great enjoyments?"

"My dear, don't you know it is a part of the privilege of a free-born
Englishman to delight in hunting 'rats and mice and such small beer,' as
much or more than the grand chasse? I have not the smallest doubt that
all the old cavaliers were fine old farm-loving f