were held in the highest and most intimate appreciation; while many of the numerous titled visitants who attended the celebrated and magnificent Granby hunt were of too convivial notoriety to be often admitted within the social home-society of either Castle Granby or Somerset Castle, the two cynosure mansions which, now palace-like, crest with their peaceful groves the summits of those two promontory heights whereon in former times they stood in fortress strength, the guardians of each opening pass into that spacious and once important belligerent vale! Amongst the less-esteemed frequenters of the chase was devoted Nimrod, Sir Richard Shafto, who every season fixed himself and family at a convenient hunting-lodge near the little town of Grantham, with his right worthy son and heir who by calling at Somerset Castle soon after the arrival of his guests, caused a trifling change in its arrangements. When Dick Shafto (as all the grooms in the stables familiarly designated him) was ushered into the room, he nodded to Sir Robert, and, turning his back on the ladies, told Pembroke he had ridden to Somerset "on purpose to _bag_ him for Woodhill Lodge." "Upon my life," cried he, "if you don't come, I will cut and run. There is not a creature but yourself within twenty miles to whom I can speak--not a man worth a sixpence. I wish my father had broken his neck before he accepted that confounded embassy, which encumbers me with the charge of my old mother!" After this dutiful wish, which brought down a weighty admonition from Miss Dorothy, the young gentleman promised to behave better, provided she would persuade Pembroke to accompany him to the Lodge. Mr. Somerset did not show much alacrity in his consent; but to rid his family of so noisy a guest, he rose from his chair, and acquiescing in the sacrifice of a few clays to good nature, bade his father farewell, and gave orders for a ride to Grantham. As soon as the gentlemen left the saloon, Miss Dundas ran up stairs, and from her dressing-room window in the west tower pursued the steps of their horses as they cantered down the winding steep into the high road. An abrupt angle of the hill hiding them from her view, she turned round with a toss of the head, and flinging herself into a chair, exclaimed, "Now I shall be bored to death by this prosing family! I wish his boasted hunter had run away with Shafto before he thought of coming here!"