sumed the Squire, not noticing this remark-
"but not equal to the other; then Ringwood's
voice! you should hear him take the lead at a
recover after the whole pack has been at fault;
there's music! there's a tone! Singleton and
Clayton, the glee-men, are nothing to it. Your
heart beats and jumps and thumps at the
sound, as if it would break out of your bosom,
and leap over a five-barred gate.”

"You come just in time to learn the news about Mr. Goldingham," cried Mrs. Chatsworth; "all that I reported of him is true.” "Whoop! that is new indeed," replied the Squire; "but I am not so much surprised, for I believe you said nothing in his favour and where there is either disgrace or misfortune to be ferreted out, either in a man's own person, or in any of his relatives, I'll back Mrs. Chatsworth for a staunch hound to stick to the scent, and a rare one to give tongue when it is found."

"Oh, you ungrateful creature! is this my reward for saving you from visiting a tallow

chandler?"

“Whoop! I am none of your London fantasticals," replied the Squire: "in the country it is the houses not the inmates that are acquainted. Harpsden Hall, Goldingham Place, Penwick Castle, Havering Court, the Rookery, and two or three more within visiting distance, have been cronies together for ages, and you wouldn't surely have the heart to break up the intimacy. He shall dine with me, by the Lord Harry, and your ladyship shall meet him."

"Oh ! my dear Squire, you forget my delicate health my poor stomach is in such a state, that if once I get a nausea I should be qualmish for a month. Eugh! I declare the very thought has made me quite faint and queasy ; I must take one of Dr. Goddard's drops."

"Yoicks! Fiddle-faddle! take a gallop with me after the hounds, and you'll be well in a week. I'll mount you on such a pad that you may canter him with a bumper in your hand,

and never spill a drop:

to match little Ginger.

I'll defy all England

You know his family,

don't you? His father Tantivy was brother to Rainbow, the famous Roman-nosed bay, whose

sister was Lord Croft's white mare Calypso. You've heard, I dare say, that Ginger is first cousin to Lord Castlehaven's flea-bitten grey Highflyer, and second cousin to Colonel Ashley's famous white filly Snow-drop, that won three plates the first season at Brackley, Stanford, and Newmarket."

"I would willingly do any thing to oblige you," resumed Lady Crockatt, again having recourse to her smelling-bottle, and turning up her nose with a most distasteful look,-“ but the peculiar nature of the gentleman's profes

sion

“Ay, and the peculiar nature of the country," interrupted the Squire; "the days are cursed long in the summer, and when the fowling-piece is hung up in the hall, the hunter turned out, and his master half asleep for want of amusement in field or cover, rot me if it isn't something to have a house to call at, and a queer old badger to bait, like this city square-toes. It will be better sport than going to see Dove, the famous bear, mouzzled by the mastiffs. Besides, he has plenty of cash they say,

1

and if he plays at piquet, gleek, ombre, queen Nazareen, lantiloo, bankfalet, passage, boast, or hazard, shuffle-board or billiards, bowls or tennis, he shall meet with a match here that will soon make him show the colour of his city gold. Whoop! tally-ho! to cover! to cover! we'll rout him out, unkennel the old fox, bag him up safe, bring him in triumph to the Rookery, and turn him out in the dining-room, before a full field of sportsmen."

"My dear Marmaduke!" said the Squire's sister, a fine blushing girl with bright black eyes and a profusion of jetty ringlets," you are always so precipitate: Mr. Goldingham may prove to be a personage whom it would be quite unworthy to treat in this manner, and I am de cidedly of opinion that you ought to wait."

"And what say you, Old Nick ?" cried the Squire, turning to one of his guests, whose sodden, ghastly, time-worn features, and craftylooking, though fixed and lustreless eye, seemed to render the name by which he was addressed not altogether inapplicable.

"Since he has got the darby, the rhino, let

us have him by all means," was the reply given, in a hoarse, husky voice; "if he is bubble-able I warrant I'll soon make my pocket acquainted with the clink of his megs."

Among the Squire's guests present at this conversation was Sir Ambrose Jessop, a member of Parliament, a great orator, but a considerably greater bore in the House; a prig and a solemn coxcomb every where. With a selfish timidity he generally withdrew whenever his vote would have been of real consequence to either side, and upon common occasions evinced a benevolent anxiety to conciliate both parties, by speaking for one and voting for the other.— By this constant dependance upon his own paltry apprehensions, he aspired to the reputation of an independent member, while in private life he sought to secure esteem by being of every body's opinion but his own, and to command respect by doling out his sententious indecisions alliterations: "Before this question is decided," he exclaimed, rising up very formally from his chair, “I wish to offer a few words on the subject. Though I completely

in

pompous