MAJOR Yammerton was rather a peculiar man, inasmuch as he was an Ass, without being a Fool. He was an Ass for always puffing and inflating himself, while as regarded worldly knowledge, particularly that comprised in the magic letters £. s. d., few, if any, were his equals. In the former department, he was always either on the strut or the fret, always either proclaiming the marked attention he had met with, or worrying himself with the idea that he had not had enough. At home, instead of offering people freely and hospitably what he had, he was continually boring them with apologies for what he had not. Just as if all men were expected to have things alike, or as if the Major was an injured innocent who had been defrauded of his rights. If he was not boring and apologising, then he was puffing or praising everything indiscriminately—depending, of course, upon who he had there—a great gun or a little one. He returned from his Tantivy Castle hunt, very much pleased with our Billy, who seemed to be just the man for his money, and by the aid of his Baronetage he made him out to be very highly connected. Mrs. Yammerton and the young ladies were equally delighted with him, and it was unanimously resolved that he should be invited to the Grange, for which purpose the standing order of the house “never to invite any one direct from a great house to theirs,” was suspended. A very salutary rule it is for all who study appearances, seeing that what looks very well one way may look very shady the other; but this being perhaps a case of “now or never,” the exception would seem to have been judiciously made. The heads of the house had different objects in view; Mamma’s, of course, being matrimonial, the Major’s, the laudable desire to sell Mr. Pringle a horse. And the mention of Mamma’s object leads us to the young ladies.