Amid the various offices filled by this Mathews-at-home of a servant, there was none perhaps in which he looked better or more natural than in that of a huntsman. Short, spare, neat, with a bright black eye, contrasting with the sobered hue of his thin grey hair, no one would suppose that the calfless little yellow and brown-liveried coachman of the previous night was the trim, neatly-booted, neatly-tied huntsman now raising his cap to the Richest Commoner in England, and his great master Major Yammerton—Major of the Featherbedfordshire Militia, master of “haryers,” and expectant magistrate. “Well, Solomon,” said the Major, acknowledging his salute, as though it was their first meeting of the morning, “well, Solomon, what do you think of the day?” “Well, sir, I think the day’s well enough,” replied Solomon, who was no waster of words. “I think so too,” said the Major, drawing on his clean doeskin gloves. The pent-up hounds then raised another cry. “That’s pretty!” exclaimed the Major listening “That’s _beautiful!_” added he, like an enthusiastic admirer of music at the opera. Imperturbable Billy spoke not. “Pr’aps you’d like to see them unkenneled?” said the Major, thinking to begin with the first act of the drama. “Yarse,” replied Billy, feeling safe as long as he was on foot. The Major then led the way through a hen-house-looking door into a little green court-yard, separated by peeled larch palings from a flagged one beyond, in which the expectant pack were now jumping and frisking and capering in every species of wild delight. “Ah, you beauties!” exclaimed the Major, again cracking his whip. He then paused, thinking there would surely be a little praise. But no; Billy just looked at them as he would at a pen full of stock at a cattle show. “Be-be-beauties, ar’n’t they?” stuttered the Major. “Yarse,” replied Billy; thinking they were prettier than the great lounging, slouching foxhounds. “Ca-ca-capital hounds,” observed the Major. No response from Billy. “Undeniable b-b-blood,” continued our friend. No response again. “F-f-foxhounds in mi-mi-miniature,” observed the Major. “Yarse,” replied Billy, who understood that. “Lovely! Lovely! Lovely! there’s a beautiful bitch,” continued the Major, pointing to a richly pied one that began frolicking to his call. “Bracelet! Bracelet! Bracelet!” holloaed he to another; “pretty bitch that—pure Sir Dashwood King’s blood, just the right size for a haryer—shouldn’t be too large. I hold with So-so-somerville,” continued the Major, waxing warm, either with his subject, or at Billy’s indifference, “that one should