Mr. Winter had just pronounced it becoming too dark to judge fairly his productions, when the little maid entered and informed him that tea and the company were waiting; we returned to the drawing room, where we found the Colonel and Miss Vernon, Gilpin, and a tall dried up looking woman in a yellow turban, assembled round a large table, which groaned, or ought to have groaned, under piles of delicately brown hot cakes, multitudes of little round pats of butter, each adorned with a cowslip in bas relief, and a massive tea equipage. There was a cheerful buzz of conversation, with a pleasant accompaniment of hissing from a portly tea urn that sent forth volumes of steam. The gentlemen rose to greet us, and Winter, passing to the turbanned lady, expressed his pleasure at seeing her, adding-- "I do not think you know Miss Cox, Captain Egerton? The Honourable Captain Egerton; Miss Araminta Cox." Somewhat to my surprise the lady gave herself the trouble of rising to make me a profound curtsey. I secured a seat between Mrs. Winter and Kate, and joined in the general conversation, which took a very merry turn on our appearance, in consequence of Winter having discovered that Kate and Gilpin had been wofully taken in about some old stone inscribed with Saxon or Runic characters, they had raved of for a week, and which turned out to be frightfully modern. Kate, however, retaliated by quizzing him on his intended purchase of a pony, more fit for a picture than a phaeton; and clapped her hands in triumph, when Winter disclosed the fact that, contrary to the Colonel's warning, he had absolutely completed the purchase. Much laughter and ingenuity were called forth by these rival charges, but we all found the gravity and earnestness with which Winter repelled Kate's attacks upon his new steed irresistible. "At all events, Mr. Winter, it is not half so disgraceful to be cheated by an almost obliterated inscription on a stone, as to be taken in by a horse-dealer. We deceived ourselves, but you have not even that consolation; you fell a victim to the devices of a groom," concluded Kate, pushing her chair from the tea-table, and rising. "_Per di Bacco!_" exclaimed Winter thickly, and with the greatest energy, "the Colonel is mistaken; I tested the eyes; I tied a handkerchief over the best looking of the two and led him up and down, and he walked, sir, without the slightest hesitation! Tell me he is minus an eye after that!" We received this conclusive evidence with a roar of laughter that disturbed the murmured conference Mrs. Winter and Miss Cox had maintained during our argument, fragments of which had reached my ears occasionally, indicating strong disapprobation of some unhappy individuals. "Do you play whist, Captain Egerton?" enquired our hostess, as the trim damsel was removing the goodly array which had suffered considerably under our united efforts.