The four-year-old was a fine, lengthy, _lashing_-looking young horse, to use a graphic expression, more akin to the kennel than the stable. He had all that thickness of outline and _coarseness_ of particular points which sportsmen so like to see, when pedigrees are unimpeachable, and which are sure to grow out into eventual strength and symmetry. Mr. Sawyer would perhaps have admired him more, had his attention not been distracted by the apparition in the young one’s box of the following choice assortment: viz. one pair of Balmoral-boots (arched instep and pointed heels, after Leech); one scarlet _jupe_, short and full; one morning-gown, very rich and voluminous, tucked and girt up all about ditto; one pair of neat little gloved hands, with tight-fitting bust and arms to match; and one rosy, smiling, happy face; the whole crowned by _such_ a hat and feather as said “_Suivez moi!_” far more peremptorily than ever did Henri Quatre’s great white _panache_. After that, he looked very little at the four-year-old. Poor Mr. Sawyer! When his horse was led out, to take him back to Harborough, she patted its grey nose, and called it “_a darling_.” “A darling!” and the ungrateful brute snorted all over her pretty face and hands! Well, he patted its neck himself, as he rode out of the yard. The day seemed to have improved somehow, though the fog was equally dense, and twilight—or rather no-light—had set in. That cigar, too, which the Honourable gave him just under Langton, he thought, was the best he had ever smoked in his life. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IX FOUR O’CLOCK, STABLES I SHOULD be sorry for my reader to suppose that John Standish Sawyer was what is termed “a susceptible man.” On the contrary, since his well-remembered rejection by Miss Mexico, an event of which it is unnecessary to specify the date, he had steeled himself resolutely against the fair, and devoted his energies, if possible, more exclusively than ever to the worship of Diana. Cold as she is at times, and rigorous as are her icy frowns, corrugating that beaming face into unpropitious wrinkles, at least she is a mistress who never deceives. The thermometer at your dressing-room window tells you exactly the humour in which you will find her, and we do not hear the old, whose season of enjoyment has passed away, regretting the hours and days they have spent in her service. “If I had my time to come over again,” I heard a hale octogenarian declare not long ago, “I should make _one_ alteration. I should flirt a little _less_ and hunt a great deal _more_.” He had been a four-days-a-week man all his life, and in his youth a fierce admirer of the ladies. The foregoing, nevertheless, was the result of his experience.