shire Baronet at Pangburn Park, expecting she would be very much pleased and struck with the increased consequence. Instead of which, however, though Mrs. Pringle felt that he had perhaps hit upon the lesser evil, she wrote him a very loving letter by return of post, saying she was glad to hear he was enjoying himself, but cautioning him against “Moses Mainchance” (omitting the Sir), adding that every man’s character was ticketed in London, and the letters “D. D.” for “Dirty Dog” were appended to his. She also told him that uncle Jerry had been inquiring about him, and begging she would call upon him at an early day on matters of business, all of which will hereafter “more full and at large appear,” as the lawyers say; meanwhile, we must back the train of ideas a little to our hero. Just as he was affixing the great seal of state to the letter, Cuddy Flintoff’s “for-rard on! for-rard on!” was heard progressing along the passage, followed by a noisy knock, with an exclamation of “Pringle” at our friend’s door. “Come in!” cried he; and in obedience to the invitation, Flintoff stood in the doorway. “Don’t forget,” said he, “that we dine at Hinton to-day, and the Baronet’s ordered the trap at four,” adding, “I’m going to dress, and you’d better do the same.” So saying, Cuddy closed the door, and hunted himself along to his own room at the end of the passage—“_E’leu in there! E’leu in!_” oried he as he got to the door. Hinton, once the second town in Hit-im and Hold-im shire, stands at the confluence of the Long Brawlinerford and Riplinton brooks, whose united efforts here succeed in making a pretty respectable stream. It is an old-fashioned country place, whose component parts may be described as consisting of an extensive market-place, with a massive church of the florid Gothic, or gingerbread order of architecture at one end, a quaint stone-roofed, stone-pillared market cross at the other, the Fox and Hounds hotel and posting-house on the north side, with alternating shops and public houses on the south. Its population, according to a certain “sore subject” topographical dictionary, was 23,500, whilst its principal trade might have been described as “fleecing the foxhunters.” That was in its golden days, when Lord Martingal hunted the country, holding his court at the Fox and Hounds hotel, where gentlemen stayed with their studs for months and months together, instead of whisking about with their horses by steam. Then every stable in the town was occupied at very remunerative rents, and the inhabitants seemed to think they could never build enough.