The mild “flirtage,” involving much tribute from the glover and the florist, the bookseller and the photographer, had been going on for nearly three years, and Harrington was tremendously in earnest. His sisters had encouraged him in his infatuation, thinking that it would be rather a nice thing to have a baronet as a family connection, and with a sneaking admiration for Sir Henry Baldwin’s club-house manners, and slangy vocabulary, which had to be translated to them in the first instance by Harrington. They liked to be intimate with Miss Baldwin of the Mount, liked to see her smart little pony-cart waiting for an hour in front of the door in Cornhill, while the young lady prattled about her conquests, her frocks, and her parties, over the afternoon tea-table. True that she never talked about anybody but herself, except when she depreciated a rival belle; but the background of her talk was the smart world, and that was a world of which Janet and her sister loved to hear, albeit “plain-living and high-thinking” was their motto. Sir Henry had a small hunting stud, and somewhat ungraciously allowed his elder sister an occasional mount, although, as he took care to impress upon her, he hated hunting women. For the pleasure of being in the young lady’s society Harrington, who had no passion for horsemanship, became all of a sudden an ardent sportsman, borrowed his brother’s cob, Peter, and was ultimately cajoled into the purchase of an elderly hunter, which was not quite quick enough for his friend Sir Henry. “You don’t mean hunting in the shires, so pace is not of so much consequence to you as it is to me,” said the baronet. “Mahmud will carry you beautifully in our country, and he’s as quiet as a sheep.” It is possible that this qualification of sheepishness was Mahmud’s chief merit in Harrington’s estimation. He was a black horse, and looked a good deal for the money. Sir Henry asked a hundred guineas for him, and finally took his friend’s acceptance for eighty, and this transaction was the first burden of debt which Harrington Dalbrook laid upon his shoulders after leaving the University. There had been college debts, and he had considerably exceeded a very liberal allowance, but his father had paid those debts to the last shilling; and one grave and stern remonstrance, with a few fatherly words of advice for the future, had been all that Harrington had been called upon to endure. But he did not forget that his father had warned him against the consequences of any future folly. He felt rather uncomfortable when the black horse was brought to the door one hunting morning, and when his father happened to be in the front office, whence he could see the unknown animal. “Where did you get that black horse, Harrington? Is it a hire?” he asked. “No. The fact is I’ve bought him.”