Probably, the real mistress, when she does come, will be very different from the imaginary one.

And now I have let this letter run to an unconscionable length, yet feel as if I had not said half I wish. I will inflict on you the balance when we meet, and in the meantime remain as ever,

Yours most truly,

ALGERNON LEXLEY.

No. VI.

To Major-General J. PIKE, &c., South Kensington, London, S.W.

Plumpton Priors, Jan. 12th.

MY DEAR JACOB,-My wife has written to yours by to-day's post, with a formal invitation to you both. I write to you, as usual, because I want you to do something for me. In the first place, of course you must come here. That question can admit neither of doubt nor argument. If you have other engagements, throw them over; if pleasures, postpone; if duties, neglect them: here you are bound to be on the 17th at latest. I have kept Marbury Hill on purpose, and my keeper says he has twice as many pheasants in the lower wood as when we shot it last year. That ought to be good enough. If you can hold as straight as you did then, I can promise you a hundred to your own gun. I have been out very little, the incurable complaint of anno domini is beginning to tell, and though I have few bodily ailments, and am still pretty strong and active, that moral energy, which is the backbone of all exertion, fails day by day.

That will never be the case with you. They say, though I don't believe it, a man must die either of syncope or asphyxia—by fainting or suffocation. In the same way, age as it steals on makes us year by year more fussy or more torpid. How much better to be the stream that keeps itself pure by ceaselessly dashing and boiling against a rock, than the green slimy pond, never ruffled by a breath, but stagnating calmly and helplessly into mud! You are the youngest of all our contemporaries. Long may you remain so!

And yet, my dear old friend, it does not seem so many years ago (can it be more than fifty?) since we won the Double Sculling Sweepstakes, amidst the shouts of my tutor's levy, at the Brocas Clump. I remember, and so do you, as if it had happened yesterday, how we pounded a Leicestershire field at the second fence from the Coplow; and yet I doubt if one of those we left behind us is alive now. "Where is the life that late I led ?" and where, oh! where are the loves we loved, the sums we squandered, the horses we tired, and the scores of good fellows we have seen out?

"There's many a lad I loved is dead
And many a lass grown old,
And while the lesson strikes my head
My weary heart grows cold.

But wine awhile staves off despair,
Nor lets a thought remain;
And that I think 's a reason fair
To fill my glass again."

If we lived to a hundred, should we ever forget how poor Frank used to troll out Morris's famous drinking song after mess? Alas! if he could have resisted the filling (and emptying) of his own glass so persistently we should have had him with us still.

I sometimes wish that I had remained in the service, as you did, and married later in life. But I suppose these things are arranged for us, and that every station has its drawbacks-every horse is handicapped to carry a weight proportioned to his merits. As old Drill-sergeant Macpherson used to say to the recruits, "It's not all beer and skittles when you've taken Her Majesty's shilling." And I fancy none of those over whom he domineered were inclined to dispute so obvious a truism.

Now to detail the commissions I want executed in London. In the first place, will you go to Lincoln's Inn, any day this week, and jog everybody's memory concerning our trustee business? They seem to have forgotten that another quarter's interest will be due on the 25th. Also look in at Meerschaum's, and try if you can get me some more of those large cigars we liked in Scotland. I will take any number of boxes-say a dozen-if they are the right sort; but I will not have short ones. I smoke very little, as you know, but like that little long.

You are sure to be at Tattersall's, so it will be no trouble to look at Mountjoy's horses. He has a chestnut that I am told would carry me. You know exactly what I want-something very perfect, with good manners and easy to ride; a rough-actioned horse tires me to death. He must be a fine jumper, as I like occasionally to mount a friend, and do not wish him to be brought home with a broken neck-at least, as old Bitterley said, "not to my house." A chestnut horse they call Magnate bears the character of an excellent hunter. I will ask you to have him out and look him well over; if you like his make and shape you can bid for him up to whatever you think he is worth. I should not mind three hundred; but you must be very careful, for when you come here you will have to ride him yourself.

I know you will like some claret I have just imported-Leoville '64 -that will never get any better, and ought to be drunk out now. I think too you will like the little party staying here. Foster, I fear, will be gone; it is impossible to keep him more than two days from

his hounds and his kennel. He makes a good master, and they have promised him a fair subscription. Potter does pretty well; he is an excellent servant, as I told them all they would find him-very patient in the field, very persevering, and lets his hounds alone; but he does not get quick after his fox. He never spoils a run and never makes one. I hunt so little now that, of course, I do not say much, but let them find out for themselves. You and I once thought every huntsman heaven-born, every fence practicable, every fox forward, and every hound right. I am not sure but that the enjoyment was greater in those days and the disappointment less.

Two pleasant dragoons of the old plunging pattern will remain till Returns, at the end of the month; they are good fellows enoughride and shoot straight, make themselves extremely agreeable in the drawing-room, and entertain the profoundest respect for a majorgeneral, which I hope you will do nothing to lessen. I expect Percy Mortimer to-day (from the Feejee Islands, I believe), and Horace Maxwell, from the Foreign Office, both very hungry for shooting. But never fear, not a stick shall be moved in Marbury till you come. My niece Annie is here, and looking forward with great delight to your visit. I do not know on what principle she has appropriated you, but she always speaks of you as her General. Tell Mrs. Pike, with our kindest regards, that I will never forgive her if she does not bring the baby. There is a steady old rocking-horse still eating his head off under the stairs; I wish you would both stay till your son is old enough to ride him.

And now, my dear fellow, hoping to see you very soon,
I remain, yours as ever,

JOHN DENNISON.

No. VII.

TO PERCY MORTIMER, Esq., Travellers' Club, Pall Mall, London, S.W. Plumpton Priors, Jan. 12th.

DEAR PERCY,-Not having seen or heard anything of you since we parted at Meerut, it did knock the wind out of me more than a bit to be told you were expected here this week. I can only hope the tip is a straight one. Come by all means, if you can. The crib is craftily constructed, warm, water-tight, and with capacious cellarage. The bedrooms are easy of access, and the stairs made on purpose for after-dinner transport. The host is a trump, his cook so-so, but happily not too ambitious, and his liquors simply undeniable. A geological party, by name Lexley, who is getting his health with the rest of us, says it is a clay soil, with a sub-something of something else. Being a scientific cove, you shall argue the point with him

when you come. To me it seems a surface of hard frost, with a swamp underneath, that will make the country unrideable when it thaws. In the meantime we are getting the skates ready, and Ieven I-am coming out as "quite the ladies' man." I am to instruct Miss Dennison to-morrow in the graceful art, and can only hope she may take her croppers good-humouredly; for, as Pat Conolly used to say, "it's a mighty slippery hold ye get of the water when ye lay iron to ice." I shall do my best to keep her head straight, for you don't often meet them of that stamp. I'm a bad hand at describing a woman, but I'll be bound you haven't seen such a shaped one in all the Feejee Islands-and I give you the tattooing in. As to her being pretty and all that, it seems a matter of course; but she has a way of looking round at a poor fellow that makes him feel very glad he's a bachelor, yet very unwilling to remain one. Besides, from what Mrs. Dennison let out, she stands a good chance of having a pot of money when some old buffer dies, and he's past seventy now. Mrs. D. speaks by the card, I fancy; I know I shouldn't like to contradict her, and I am sure Dennison wouldn't. I should say she wants her head at her fences, and would make it very uncomfortable for him if he didn't mind what he was about. You must say "Yes" to her if you wish to sail on an even keel in this house; and Nokes, who isn't easily dashed, is obliged to behave quite prettily when she's got her eye on him. The niece seems the only person who isn't afraid of her, and I take it there's some hard hitting when they do have a turn-up. I don't understand women, having had very few dealings with them, for which I can't be too thankful; but it does seem to me that it takes a woman to tackle a woman, and you can't do better than let them fight it out. Miss Dennison looks a goodtempered girl too, but no doubt she has lots of pluck.

The shooting is fair, considering it's a hunting country, and Uncle John, as everybody calls our host, is very absolute on the subject of pheasants and foxes. He insists on having the latter, and when he has established that point, he says, he finds no difficulty about the other. It is the only subject on which I have yet heard him hold forth, for he is by no means a noisy one-would rather listen than speak and rather smoke than do either. Nokes, who is also a nailer at holding his tongue, swears by him, of course.

I meant to tell you about the country and the hunting, and all that, in case you should bring any horses; but in this weather shooting and skating irons are the necessary outfit. So I will only add, come if you can; if not, scrape me off one line to say where I am to draw for you in the village on my way to headquarters.

Yours very truly,

ANTHONY STOKES.

To the HALL PORTER, Army and Navy Club, S.W.

Jan. 12th.

Please forward my letters. Address, "Plumpton Priors, Middleton Lacy," till further orders, instead of putting them in the fire as usual. JAMES NOKES.

If people's characters are to be guessed from their handwriting, we may fairly suppose that their actual correspondence will afford us something more certain than mere surmise as to their habits, tempers, tastes, and dispositions. It is for this reason we have taken such unwarrantable liberties with the letter-box at Plumpton Priors.

CHAPTER II.

FIVE O'CLOCK TEA.

"THIS is one of our noblest institutions, Captain Nokes. I see you never miss it."

The Captain, gorgeously attired in yellow knickerbockers and purple hose, looked round to assure himself that Stokes was "in support." Encouraged by the presence of his comrade, similarly attired, he charged boldly up to the tea-table at which Miss Dennison had taken her seat.

Nothing fetches a fellow like a cup of tea at this time of day, and a cigar afterwards." The Captain made a sudden pull-up, as if fearful of having committed a solecism, adding somewhat inconsequently, "Of course if there are ladies and that, you know, one don't want to smoke, you know. A man can't have everything."

66

"You're quite a philosopher," replied Miss Dennison, with one of her brightest smiles, as she filled the cups. "But don't you always have tea in your barracks? I've heard a great deal about the evening meal. I know what telling off' is, and a kit, and a canteen. I'm rather a military person, you observe. I confess I do like soldiers, Captain Nokes!"

Honest Nokes, than whom no man alive had better nerve to confront a swift bowler or an awkward fence, looked seriously alarmed at this frank avowal, withdrawing his chair at least a couple of feet from so dangerous a neighbourhood. His comrade, however, came opportunely to the rescue.

"And officers, Miss Dennison," added Stokes, with a glance from his best eye.

"Not unless they are generals," returned the young lady. "You see I've got a general of my own. A major-general. At least he belongs to a great friend of mine. He is to be here next week."