“Much higher views. My poor mother belongs to the old school. She cannot forget that her grandfather was a marquis. It is foolish, but I suppose it is human nature. Don’t let us talk any more about this nonsense. I like you very much as my brother’s friend, and I shall go on liking you if you don’t make me unhappy by talking nonsense.” Harrington took comfort from that one word “unhappy.” It implied depths of feeling beneath that fashionable manner which held him at arm’s length. His spirits were somewhat dashed presently when Miss Baldwin looked with friendly contemptuousness at his neat heather-mixture coat and mud-stained white cords, and said carelessly,— “It’s a pity you don’t belong to the Hunt. I fancy you would look rather nice in pink!” “I—I—have so lately given up the idea of the Church,” he faltered. “Yes, but now you have given it up, you ought to be a member of the Hunt. Let my brother put you up at the next meeting. You are pretty sure of being elected, and then you can order your pink swallow-tail coat in time for the Hunt Ball in December.” Harrington shivered. That would mean two red coats—a hunting coat and a dancing coat. But this idea of twenty pounds laid out upon coats was not the worst. Twenty years ago, when he had ridden as hard and kept as good horses as any member of the Hunt, Matthew Dalbrook had resolutely declined the honour of membership. He had considered that a provincial solicitor had other work than to ride to hounds twice or three times a week. He might allow himself that pleasure now and again as an occasional relaxation in a hard-working professional life; but it was not for him to spend long days tearing about the country with the men of whose lands and interests he was in some wise custodian. Theodore, who was at heart much more of a sportsman than his younger brother, had respected his father’s old-fashioned prejudices, whatever line they took, and he had never allowed his name to be put up for the Hunt. He had subscribed liberally to the fund for contingent expenses, as his father and grandfather had done before him; but he had been content to forego the glory of a scarlet coat, and the privilege of the Hunt buttons. Harrington was not strong in that chief virtue of man, moral courage—the modern and loftier equivalent for that brute-courage which was the Roman’s only idea of virtue. He felt that to acknowledge himself afraid to put up for election into the sacred circle of the Hunt lest he should offend his father, was to own by implication that a solicitor was not quite upon the social level of landed gentry and retired military men, the colonels and majors who form the chief ornament of the average Hunt club. He murmured something to the effect that his father was not sporting, and wouldn’t like him to waste too much time riding to hounds.