"Yes," I returned, "but I hardly dare say so, after the way in which Mrs. Roberts snapped me up about it the other night." "How was that," he asked, with some curiosity. I related the peculiar manner in which she had received my admiration of it, and ended by asking him if he could imagine what was the cause of it. "Oh," he said, carelessly, "you must not mind what she says, and make all excuses for her. She has had a great deal of trouble, and is naturally of a nervous and irritable disposition, and living here alone has increased all her peculiarities in a very great degree." "In a very uncomfortable degree," I said; and Mr. Rutledge was continuing, when his further remarks were cut short by the desertion of two of the party, to wit, the terrier and myself. Now I had no intention of being rude, but looking down at that moment, I discovered that Tigre had possessed himself of one of my gloves, and was gnawing and shaking it with unspeakable _goût_. I made a motion to take it from him, whereon the rascal darted away down the path, then paused an instant, and before I could reach him, was away again toward the barn. I could not surrender so, and forgetting everything but the chase, tore after him at the top of my speed. To see the way in which that little object "streaked" along, looking back at me out of the corners of his eyes! Four legs naturally get over the ground faster than two, and Tigre had the start of me besides, but I had graduated in running at St. Catharine's, and was not to be beaten by such an antagonist as this. It was a steeple chase of no unexciting character. "We staid not for brake, and we stopped not for stone." A ditch intervened, but proved no obstacle, and on we tore, till we reached the low fence that separated the grounds from the outbuildings. Tigre shot under it--I took it at a flying-leap. He was making for the barn, and once there, he would baffle me; some favorite hole or inaccessible cranny would shelter him from my pursuit, and hide forever from human gaze my ill-fated glove. This goading thought sustained my flagging energy in the same proportion that the nearness of the goal reanimated that of Tigre. On, on, with desperate resolve! Stephen leaned on his spade to witness the issue of the race, Michael paused, the currycomb in his suspended hand, to see the result; and both involuntarily ejaculated, "Pretty well done!" as on the very threshold of the barn, I sprang upon my opponent and wrested the glove from his determined teeth! And in a frantic romp, we rolled together over and over on the hay, Tigre's active paws and nose in my very face, his excitement carrying him beyond all bounds of decorum, and mine, alas! making me as forgetful of all proprieties; till an approaching footstep recalled me to my senses.