There was the faintest flush on her usually pale cheek, a furtive glancing in her long-lashed dark eyes, as she threw her veil over her shoulder, gave a last smoothing to the braids of her black hair, and tripped down the front steps, leaning on the arm of her courteous old host, to where our cavalry stood, pawing the gravel impatiently, arching their necks, and champing their bright steel bits. We were soon mounted and _en route_. Cora and Lady Louisa, who were resolved on having a little private gossip, after merrily quizzing me about my dragoon seat on the saddle, rode at first together; and, as we paired off down the avenue, followed by my man, Willie Pitblado, and another well-mounted groom, I found myself alongside of Berkeley, after Sir Nigel, who had a county meeting to attend at Cupar, left us. "Your uncle’s stables make a good turn-out of cavalry," said Berkeley; "this grey is a good bit of horseflesh." "’Treads well above his pasterns,’ is rather a favourite with Sir Nigel," said I, coldly, for he had a patronizing tone about him that I did not relish. I could laugh with Lady Louisa when she spoke of Sir Nigel as "a queer old droll," or "a dear old thing;" but I could ill tolerate Berkeley, when he ran on in the following fashion— "He is certainly a trump, Sir Nigel, but droll, as Lady Loftus says—exquisitely droll! If he—haw—spills salt, no doubt he remembers Judas, and throws a pinch over his left shoulder; knocks the bottoms out of his eggs, lest the fairies make tugs of’em; and—haw, haw—would faint, I suppose, if he dined one of thirteen." "I am not aware that Sir Nigel has any of the proclivities that you mention," said I; but, heedless that I was staring at him, Berkeley, with his bland, insipid smile, continued his impertinence. "Things have—haw—changed so much within the last few years, that these old fellows are actually ignorant of the world they live in; and the—haw, haw—world goes so fast, that in three years _we_ learn more of it, and of life (Gad! they know nothing of real life), than they did in thirty. As a young man, Sir Nigel was, I have no doubt, a buck in leather breeches and hair powder—haw—drove a Stanhope, perhaps, and wore a Spenser, _ultimus Romanorum_; paid his first visit to London in the old mail coach, with a brace of pistols in his pocket, and the thorough conviction that every second Englishman was a thief." I listened with growing indignation, for on this man, who quizzed him thus, my poor uncle was lavishing his genuine, old-fashioned Scottish hospitality. I had every disposition to quarrel with Berkeley, and had we been with the regiment, or elsewhere, would undoubtedly have done so; but in my uncle’s house, a _fracas_ with a guest, more especially a brother officer, was the last thing to be thought of. "You are somewhat unfriendly in your remarks, Mr. Berkeley," said I, haughtily.