ellows, who liked a rat
hunt, and enjoyed turning out a barn with all their hearts."

"There goes Fred!" cried Henrietta.

"Ah! capital. He takes to it by nature, you see. There--there! O what
a scene it is! Look how beautifully the sun comes in, making that solid
sort of light on the mist of dust at the top."

"And how beautifully it falls on grandpapa's head! I think that
grandpapa with little Tom is one of the best parts of the picture, Bee."

"To be sure he is, that noble old head of his, and that beautiful gentle
face; and to see him pointing, and soothing the child when he gets
frightened at the hubbub, and then enjoying the victories over the poor
rats as keenly as anybody!"

"Certainly," said Henrietta, "there is something very odd in man's
nature; they can like to do such cruel-sounding things without being
cruel! Grandpapa, or Fred, or Uncle Roger, or Alex now, they are as kind
and gentle as possible: yet the delight they can take in catching and
killing--"

"That is what town-people never can understand," said Beatrice, "that
hunting-spirit of mankind. I hate above all things to hear it cried
down, and the nonsense that is talked about it. I only wish that those
people could have seen what I did last summer--grandpapa calling Carey,
and holding the ladder for him while he put the young birds into their
nest that had fallen out. And O the uproar that there was one day when
Dick did something cruel to a poor rabbit; it was two or three years
ago, and Alex and Carey set upon him and thrashed him so that they
were really punished for it, bad as it was of Dick; it was one of those
bursts of generous indignation."

"It is a very curious thing," said Henrietta, "the soldier spirit it
must be, I suppose--"

"What are you philosophising about, young ladies?" asked Mr. Langford,
coming up as Henrietta said these last words.

"Only about the spirit of the chase, grandpapa," said Beatrice, "what
the pleasure can be of the field of slaughter there."

"Something mysterious, you may be sure, young ladies," said grandpapa.
"I have hunted rats once or twice a year now these seventy years or
more, and I can't say I am tired yet. And there is Master Fred going
at it, for the first time in his life, as fiercely as any of us old
veterans, and he has a very good eye for a hit, I can tell you, if it is
any satisfaction to you. Ha! hoigh Vixen! hoigh Carey! that's it--there
he goes!"

"Now, grandpapa," said Beatrice, c