Belton Hall, an old Elizabethan mansion, belonged to the Vivians, was inhabited by Colonel George Vivian and his daughter Mildred, and they were expecting two visitors, who had been asked to the Hall for Christmas and hunting--one, Jack Vivian, the Colonel's nephew; the other, a Mr. Thomas Simpson, who was known to the world in general to be following that calling which covers a multitude of sins, which means so much yet expresses so little, viz. "something in the City." Colonel Vivian was as keen a sportsman and as good a man to hounds as there was in Slopshire, and his daughter followed closely in his footsteps--too closely sometimes, for on one occasion, when the Colonel came down at a stiffish stake-and-bound fence, Mildred, unable to stop in time, jumped right on the top of him, her horse's near hind-foot going slap through the crown of his new hat, which luckily did not at the moment contain her father's head. Belton was therefore a certain find, and the Master, knowing this, always had a fixture there in the Christmas week. Both Mildred and her father were too apt to gauge a man by his powers of getting over a country, and woe betide any unfortunate individual who had been seen to exhibit any--well, I will say hesitation--when hounds were running. If he happened to be staying at the Hall, he was chaffed most unmercifully, and under any other circumstances he was immediately set down in the mental tablets of the Vivians as a man who was not worth knowing. There was but little fear of Jack not coming up to the mark in the way of riding, for, born and brought up in the country, his first recollections were associated with hounds, and his earliest lessons comprised "the run of a fox." Of late years he had not been able to hunt as much as he would have liked, for there were two fatal objections in his way--want of time and want of money. Jack Vivian was a barrister, and a hard-working one withal. He had got his foot on the second rung of the ladder of success and meant going upwards; therefore he had little time for play, and but a small balance of spare cash; so it was only now and again that he could snatch a brief holiday, and, finding neck and spurs against a friend's horse, engage in his favourite pursuit. Notwithstanding this, there were few men who would care to back themselves against Jack across country, and there was probably not one (old Jim the Huntsman excepted) who knew more about a fox or what hounds were doing. Mr. Simpson, on the other hand, was rolling in wealth, and as his "something in the City" did not occupy much of his time, he tried in every way to assume the appearance of a country gentleman, and to be considered a modern Nimrod. Somehow, though, his three hundred-guinea hunters did not carry Mr. Simpson to the end, and it was marvellous the extraordinary and unforeseen obstacles that had prevented his appearance at the death.