being so much grown, which was not
astonishing, considering that she had not
seen me since I was in long clothes. She
had a whist party of Indian generals and
colonels, their wives and widows, the same
evening.

In the course of the week the horses
arrived. Before the end of the following week,
I entirely won my aunt's heart by
confiding to her in a moment of weakness my
adventure in the train, and my love at first
sight. She entered warmly into my interests,
and to make a long story short, Patty and I
met at balls, parties, and pic-nics. I flourished
my scarlet and the blue silk triumphantly
before her, and won a steeple-chase. The last
was a very foolish move, which sent me back in
Mr. Thinner's graces at least sixty per cent.;
but what will not vanity do? My aunt made
Mr. Thinner's acquaintance, and Miss Thinner's
too, and gave me hopes when I was
in despair. "Go on, my dear Richard," she
would say, "I am sure she likes you. You
have an excellent chance, because you are
such a random goose, and she is so very
sensible. Now I have always observed that
sensible women prefer a man who is rather
a goose."

Still the lawyer was obstinate, Patty was
his right hand—read all his letters—made
minutes of their contents—wrote answers to
his dictation—kept his cash accounts, and
made his gruel. Then he was continually
telling my aunt that if his daughter married
at all she would choose a man of business—a
person of sense, with a profession, who could,
&c. I always stopped my ears when my aunt
began to ask why I was not a lawyer, or a
clergyman, like that heavenly man the Rev.
Michah Mouchoir?

When everything else failed, I called my
valet, Giorno Robinson, into my councils while
packing away my hunting things, and taking
instructions for the next day.

"Saw Miss Thinner to-day, sir, riding
with her guvner, sir, up the Green Lanes,
while you was a-hunting, sir. Uncommon
nice young lady. Mr. Thinner a very poor
hand on a horse, sir."

"Indeed," said I, "what makes you think
so, Robinson ?"

"Why, sir, you see I was exercising
Dandy Jim in his clothes, and I just hustled
him along past the old gent, and the piebald
pony (it belongs to Snaffles, the riding-
master, and I really believe it's a hundred
years old) gave a bit of a start, and blessed if
his arms was not round its neck in no time."

Then after a pause he continued:

"If I might make so bold, seeing you're off
your feed as they say, and always riding out
one way—why if you was to swap
Hippopotamus with Mr. Thinner, you might both,
you see, sir, be suited."

"What do you mean ?" I exclaimed, half
angry, half amused.

A few days afterwards my hunting friends
were surprised to see me riding about on
Hippopotamus, packed tight and city banked
on a soft stuffed Somerset saddle, with a pad
before my leg and behind my thigh, with my
arm in a sling. In this guise I followed the
respectable Thinner at a long distance up the
green lanes, where he rode tremblingly,
under the fierce orders of his tyrant and
physician, who had said, "Mr. Thinner, if
you don't ride five miles a-day, you won't
live five years. If you don't choose to follow
my prescription, don't come to me." So
he rode daily, in fear of his life.

As soon as the regular two-mile canter
performed on this particular evening on the
riding-master's piebald, had commenced,
Robinson appeared at the end of the lane on
Dandy Jim, passed me at a gallop, and soon
overtaking the invalid lawyer, stopped short,
shouting some indistinct word, as if addressed
to Dandy Jim; on which the obedient
piebald halted, and sat down on his hind legs
like a dog, while poor Mr. Thinner rolled on.
the turf.

To canter up, to address Robinson in the
most violent language, and discharge him on
the spot—to pick up Mr. Thinner as if
he had been my father—was the work
of a moment. And this was no sooner
done than the piebald gathered himself
together, and set off toward town at a
mild trot.

Mr. Thinner had sustained no damage
except a crack in his black trousers, which
rendered walking three miles neither
convenient nor dignified. With many assurances
and asseverations, I persuaded him to mount
Hippopotamus, while I walked by his side
for the first mile. In that space, when he
felt the difference between his smooth,
slippery saddle, and the closely-packed
cushion for which, without his knowledge,
he had been carefully measured, and
between the elastic well-trained pace of the
king of cobs and the screw-canter of the
riding-master's hacks, or of the ill-broken
brute he had bought for himself from a client,
his countenance relaxed. He insisted on
my mounting Dandy Jim, while Robinson
trudged behind, apparently weeping, with
the horse-cloths. That day Mr. Thinner asked
me to dinner.

On the following day he rode Hippopotamus;
on the day after, he offered me a
hundred guineas for him, and I refused to
sell him at any price, although willing to
lend him.

The next week a letter was sent to
Messrs. Fleece, marked outside, " Private,
A. T." And my aunt's maid learned from
Miss Thinner's maid, "As Mr. Thinner said
as how he was glad to find there was nothing
again Mr. Dallington's character."

In three months the wedding of the son of
the late Richard Dallington, Esq., of Bhurtpore
Villa, to Lucy, only daughter of Abraham
Thinner, of the eminent firm, &c.,