Mrs. Pendarrel permitted her side to make the lawn before her house their home. Refreshments of all kinds were distributed among the crowd there collected with a bounteous hand. The lady herself descended among her tenants, leaning on the arm of her daughter, speaking to old acquaintance, everywhere bestowing encouragement. Even Mildred was excited by the liveliness of the scene. It was a fine genial day, with a warm breeze blowing, which kept the trees in constant motion, and gave life to the company beneath their leafless branches. Michael Sinson, only just arrived from London, was to lead the forces of Pendarrel. So his patroness, aware of his former reputation, desired; so his vanity, as well as his duty, prompted. He was active in the throng, assigning their stations to his mates, providing for all the chances of the struggle, but glancing ever and anon on the fair young form that glided through the rustic assembly like a being from another sphere. Little thought he that morning of the rosy-cheeked girl whom he had once pretended to love, and who now walked among the maidens of Trevethlan, with a sympathy divided between her sweetheart and her home. The goals were not much more than two miles apart, a short distance in a match "to the country;" but this circumstance prevented the interference of horsemen, diminished the opportunities for artifice, and made the contest depend more on the personal skill and prowess of the players. In a longer game the ball might be thrown into the hands of a mounted partizan, who would trust to the speed of his horse to carry it home in triumph; or again into the keeping of a rustic, selected for his simple appearance, who would trudge tranquilly along the high road seemingly unconscious of his valuable charge, while the hurlers on both sides sought the prize with great animation; until the news of the crafty bearer's arrival at his destination told the victory of his friends, and both parties repaired to the winning quarters to laugh over the trick, and fight the battle anew, in a high jollification. There was a meadow situated on an eminence about midway between Trevethlan and Pendarrel, between which and either goal no obstacle intervened to turn aside the play. Here it was arranged the ball should be thrown up, and hither Mrs. Pendarrel and Mildred repaired to behold the commencement of the game. The players chosen to begin stood in an irregular ring on the hill, and amongst them Sinson and Owen, the opposing generals, the latter of whom regarded the former with looks which indicated more ill-will than befitted the occasion, but which Michael observed with contemptuous indifference.