d thus she soon reached the Hall, not a little
tired and agitated. This little incident, however, she kept to herself,
and enjoined her two attendants to do the same; for she knew the
distress it would have occasioned those whom she loved. As it was she
was somewhat sharply rebuked by her mother and brother, who had just
sent two servants out in quest of her, and whom it was singular that she
should have missed. This is not the place to give an account of the
eccentric movements of our friend Titmouse; still there can be no harm
in my just mentioning that the sight of Miss Aubrey on horseback had
half maddened the little fool; her image had never been effaced from his
memory since the occasion on which, as already explained, he had first
seen her; and as soon as he had ascertained, through Snap's inquiries,
who she was, he became more frenzied in the matter than before, because
he thought he now saw a probability of obtaining her. "If, like
children," says Edmund Burke, "we will cry for the moon, why, like
children, we must--_cry on_." Whether this was not something like the
position of Mr. Tittlebat Titmouse, in his passion for CATHERINE AUBREY,
the reader can judge. He had unbosomed himself in the matter to his
confidential adviser, Mr. Snap; who, having accomplished his errand, had
the day before returned to town, very much against his will, leaving
Titmouse behind, to bring about, by his own delicate and skilful
management, an union between himself, as the future lord of Yatton, and
the beautiful sister of its present occupant.

CHAPTER IX.

Mr. Aubrey and Kate, some day or two after the strange occurrence
narrated in the last chapter, were sitting together playing at chess,
about eight o'clock in the evening; Dr. Tatham and Mrs. Aubrey, junior,
looking on with much interest; old Mrs. Aubrey being engaged in writing.
Mr. Aubrey was sadly an overmatch for poor Kate--he being in fact a
first-rate player; and her soft white hand had been hovering over the
three or four chessmen she had left, uncertain which of them to move,
for nearly two minutes, her chin resting on the other hand, and her face
wearing a very puzzled expression. "Come, Kate," said every now and then
her brother, with that calm victorious smile which at such a moment
would have tried any but so sweet a temper as his sister's. "If _I_ were
you, Miss Aubrey," was perpetually exclaiming Dr. Tatham, knowing as
much about the game the while as the