Rufus Hutton, having promised to be at home that evening, left Eoa to sleep off her heavy soporific, and followed the carriage on horseback; neither did he leave its track where the Ringwood Road turns off, for he had undertaken to tell Sir Cradock how his niece was getting on. He started nearly half an hour after the Lymington chaise, for Polly would never demean herself by trotting behind the “posters.” During that half–hour he drank hot brown brandy–and–water, although he could not bear it, to ingratiate him with Mrs. Brown for the sake of the poor Eoa. For Mrs. Brown had no other hot method of crowning the flowing bowl. And now, while I think of it, let me warn all gentle and simple people who deign on this tale of the New Forest, never to ask for pale brandy within the perambulations. How do you think they make it? By mixing brown brandy with villanous gin. Rufus was up to this, of course; and, as he must take something for the good of the house, and to get at the kindly kernel of the heavy–browed hostess, he took that which he thought would be least for his own evil. Then, leaving Mrs. Brown (who, of course, had taken her own glass at his sole charge and largesse, after fifty times “Oh no, sir, never! Oh Lord, how my Brown would be shocked!”), having imbued that good Mrs. Brown, who really was not a bad woman—which means that she was a good one, for women have no medium—with a strong aromatic impression that he was a pleasant gentleman, and no pride, not a bit of it, in him, no more than you nor me might,—off he trotted at a furious pace, smoking two cheroots at once. I believe that there was and is—for I am happy to say that he still inhales the breeze of life down his cigar, and looks browner and redder than ever—I believe that, in spite of all his troubles in connexion with this story, which took a good deal out of him, there was and is no happier man in our merry England than the worthy Rufus Hutton. And, as all happiness is negative, and goes without our knowing it, and only becomes a positive past for us to look back upon, so his went before it came, and goes or eʼer it comes. And yet he enjoys it none the less; he multiplies it by three for the past and by nine for the future, and he never finds it necessary to deduct for the present moment.