“Take this note to him, that I 'll write now, and if he be from home go to the other man,--what's his name?--Beattie.” “Dr. Beattie is coming to dinner to-day, sir,” said the servant, thinking to facilitate matters. “Just do as I tell you, my good fellow, and don't interrupt. If I am to take up my quarters here, you'll all of you have to change some of your present habits.” As he spoke, he dashed off a few hasty lines, addressing them to Sir Gilbert Eccles or Dr. Beattie. “Ask if it's 'all right;' that will be sufficient reply; and now send me my bath.” As he proceeded with his dressing,--a very lengthy affair it always was,--he canvassed with himself whether or not he ought to take the train and go down to the country with the doctor. Possibly few men in such circumstances would have given the matter a doubt. The poor fellow who had incurred the mishap had been, at his insistence, acting for him. Had it not been for Se well's pressing this task upon him, Trafford would at that moment have been hale and hearty. Sewell knew all this well; he read the event just as nineteen out of every twenty would have read it, but having done so, he proceeded to satisfy himself why all these reasonings should give way to weightier considerations. First of all, it would not be quite convenient to let the old Judge know anything of these doings in the country. His strait-laced notions might revolt at races and betting-rings. It might not be perhaps decorous that a registrar of a high court should be the patron of such sports. These were prudential reasons, which he dilated on for some time. Then came some, others more sentimental. It was to a house of doctors and nurses and gloom and sorrow he should go back. All these were to him peculiarly distasteful. He should be tremendously “bored” by it all, and being “bored” was to him whatever was least tolerable in life. It was strange that there was one other reason stronger than all these,--a reason that really touched him in what was the nearest thing in his nature to heart. He couldn't go back and look at the empty loose-box where his favorite horse once stood, and where he was never to stand more. Crescy the animal he was so proud of,--the horse he counted on for who knows what future triumphs,--the first steeplechase horse, he felt convinced, in Ireland, if not in the kingdom,--such strength, such power in the loins, such square joints, such courage, should he ever see united again? If there was anything in that man's nature that represented affection, he had it for this horse. He knew well to what advantage he looked when on his back,--he knew what admiration and envy it drew upon him to see him thus mounted. He had won him at billiards from a man who was half broken-hearted at parting with him, and who offered immense terms rather than lose him.