The Captain, who does not laugh this time, and whose turn it is to deal, shuffles the cards for the conquering game of the rubber with as much caution and prolixity as Fabius might have employed in posting his men. The Squire gets up to stretch his legs, and, the insinuation against his hospitality recurring to his thoughts, calls out to his wife--"Write to Rickeybockey to-morrow yourself, Harry, and ask him to come and spend two or three days here. There, Mrs Dale, you hear me?" "Yes," said Mrs Dale, putting her hands to her ears in implied rebuke at the loudness of the Squire's tone. "My dear sir, do remember that I'm a sad nervous creature." "Beg pardon," muttered Mr Hazeldean, turning to his son, who, having got tired of the caricatures, had fished out for himself the great folio County History, which was the only book in the library that the Squire much valued, and which he usually kept under lock and key, in his study, together with the field-books and steward's accounts, but which he had reluctantly taken into the drawing-room that day, in order to oblige Captain Higginbotham. For the Higginbothams--an old Saxon family, as the name evidently denotes--had once possessed lands in that very county. And the Captain--during his visits to Hazeldean Hall--was regularly in the habit of asking to look into the County History, for the purpose of refreshing his eyes, and renovating his sense of ancestral dignity with the following paragraph therein:--"To the left of the village of Dunder, and pleasantly situated in a hollow, lies Botham Hall, the residence of the ancient family of Higginbotham, as it is now commonly called. Yet it appears by the county rolls, and sundry old deeds, that the family formerly styled itself Higges, till, the Manor House lying in Botham, they gradually assumed the appellation of Higges-in-botham, and in process of time, yielding to the corruptions of the vulgar, Higginbotham." "What, Frank! my County History!" cried the Squire. "Mrs H. he has got my County History!" "Well, Hazeldean, it is time he should know something about the County." "Ay, and History too," said Mrs Dale, malevolently--for the little temper was by no means blown over. FRANK.--"I'll not hurt it, I assure you, sir. But I'm very much interested just at present." The CAPTAIN, putting down the cards to cut.--"You've got hold of that passage about Botham Hall, page 706, eh?" FRANK.--"No; I was trying to make out how far it is to Mr Leslie's place, Rood Hall. Do you know, mother?" MRS HAZELDEAN.--"I can't say I do. The Leslies don't mix with the county; and Rood lies very much out of the way." FRANK.--"Why don't they mix with the county?" MRS HAZELDEAN.--"I believe they are poor, and therefore I suppose they are proud: they are an old family." PARSON, thrumming on the table with great impatience.--"Old fiddledee!--talking of old families when the cards have been shuffled this half hour!"