CAPTAIN BARNABAS.--"Will you cut for your partner, ma'am?" SQUIRE, who has been listening to Frank's inquiries with a musing air.--"Why do you want to know the distance to Rood Hall?" FRANK, rather hesitatingly.--"Because Randal Leslie is there for the holidays, sir." PARSON.--"Your wife has cut for you, Mr Hazeldean. I don't think it was quite fair; and my partner has turned up a deuce--deuce of hearts. Please to come and play, if you _mean_ to play." The Squire returns to the table, and in a few minutes the game is decided by a dexterous finesse of the Captain against the Hazeldeans. The clock strikes ten: the servants enter with a tray; the Squire counts up his own and his wife's losings; and the Captain and Parson divide sixteen shillings between them. SQUIRE.--"There, Parson, I hope now you'll be in a better humour. You win enough out of us to set up a coach and four." "Tut!" muttered the Parson; "at the end of the year, I'm not a penny the richer for it all." And, indeed, monstrous as that assertion seemed, it was perfectly true, for the Parson portioned out his gains into three divisions. One-third he gave to Mrs Dale, for her own special pocket-money; what became of the second third he never owned, even to his better half--but certain it was, that every time the Parson won seven-and-sixpence, half-a-crown, which nobody could account for, found its way to the poor-box; while the remaining third, the Parson, it is true, openly and avowedly retained: but I have no manner of doubt that, at the year's end, it got to the poor quite as safely as if it had been put into the box. The party had now gathered round the tray, and were helping themselves to wine and water, or wine without water--except Frank, who still remained poring over the map in the County History, with his head leaning on his hands, and his fingers plunged in his hair. "Frank," said Mrs Hazeldean, "I never saw you so studious before." Frank started up, and coloured, as if ashamed of being accused of too much study in anything. The SQUIRE, with a little embarrassment in his voice.--"Pray, Frank, what do you know of Randal Leslie?" "Why, sir, he is at Eton." "What sort of a boy is he?" asked Mrs Hazeldean. Frank hesitated, as if reflecting, and then answered--"They say he is the cleverest boy in the school. But then he saps." "In other words," said Mr Dale, with proper parsonic gravity, "he understands that he was sent to school to learn his lessons, and he learns them. You call that sapping--I call it doing his duty. But pray, who and what is this Randal Leslie, that you look so discomposed, Squire?"