"I wish my friend, Glengall, were at home," said Mr. Graydon, leaning back in the chair by the study fire. "He'd give you a mount while you were waiting for Johnny Maher's little mare. The hounds meet at Lettergort to-day." He looked wistfully through the bare trees on the lawn, as though he saw in imagination the scarlet horsemen pounding away after the streaming line of hounds. His pupil thrust into a book a sketch of Pamela which he had been making absent-mindedly. "Why don't you hunt, sir?" he asked, with sympathy. "So I do, my lad, when I can. But I can't afford to keep a horse, and there aren't many mounts to be had here. Glengall is going to set up stables when he comes back, and I'll have the run of them, I suppose. He's a good fellow--one wouldn't mind being obliged to him." "The mare'll be a good one when she's broken," said the young man. "The best in the world for Irish fences, if she does look a bit roughish." "You'll ride her for me, when I am away at Christmas, to get her mouth in?" "Thank you, my lad; I should like to." Mr. Graydon's eye kindled with pleasure. "But I didn't know you were going. It seems a longish way to go home for Christmas." "My mother would like to see me." "To be sure, to be sure. I quite understand, and, of course, there are friends in London you naturally want to see." "No one very particularly, sir." "Ah, well! it will be a holiday from this dull place." "No, I assure you, sir. It is partly because I have some--some business I want to settle. It is really true that there is no one I go to see whom I regard more than the friends I shall be leaving behind." Sir Anthony blushed hotly over this avowal, but his unsuspicious host only saw in it the shamefacedness with which a man, and especially a young man, makes a display of his feelings. "Now, that is kind of you," he said, looking at his pupil benignantly. "I am sure our Christmas will be dull without you. Do the girls know you are going? They won't like it, eh? And they will be disappointed that you will not be here for the Vandaleur affair." "I am coming back for that, sir." "I am glad. It is really the children's first outing. It is a dull enough affair for young people, but then they will wear their pretty frocks and see strange faces. We are such quiet people, Trevithick, that even Vandaleur's big dinner and reception, which comes off regularly whenever there is a general election in sight"--Mr. Graydon broke off to laugh and rub his hands--"is an event for us. But we are forgetting our Tacitus, my boy. Let us get back to the old fellow." At that moment there was the sound of a horn, and, with the shout of a boy, Mr. Graydon was up. "Come along, Trevithick," he cried, rushing away, hatless and coatless. "We shall get a glimpse of them. What a day for a scent! They are sure to find at Larry's Spinney." His words came back to his pupil, who was getting under weigh more leisurely.