“P.S.--We expect a very grand shooting season. Last year, through the drought and heat, there was not a good turnip-field in the parish. Birds were very numerous, as they always are in hot seasons; but there was no getting near them. This season, the turnips are up to my knees. How I wish that you were here, instead of popping at the red legs! Through the great kindness of young Steenie Chapman I am to have free warren of all Sir Remnant’s vast estates! But I like the home-shooting best; and no doubt your father will come to a proper state of mind before the first. Do not take amiss, my dear boy, whatever I may have said for your good. _Scribe cito. Responde cras._ “Your loving uncle, “S. H.” All this long epistle was read by Hilary in the saddle; for he had two horses allowed him now--whenever he could get them--and now he was cantering with an order to an out-post of the advanced-guard, tracking the rear of Clausel. They knew not yet what Clausel was,--one of the few men who ever defied, and yet escaped from Wellington. The British Staff was weak just now, though freshly recruited with Hilary; or haply the Frenchman might not have succeeded in his brilliant movement. “He must be terribly put out,” said young Lorraine, meaning neither Clausel, nor Wellington, nor Napoleon even, but his Uncle Struan; “there is not a word of any paragon dog, nor the horses he has bought or chopped, nor even little Cecil. He must have had a great row with my father, and he visits it on this generation. How can he have heard of angelic Claudia, and then talk of garlic? My darling, I know what you are, though heavy-seated Britons fail to soar to such perfection! Now for Alice, I suppose. She will know how to behave, I should hope. Why how she begins, as if I were her thirty-second cousin ten times removed! And how precious short it is! But what a beautifully clear firm hand!” “MY DEAR HILARY,