in this matter, as I feared the truth of certain reports here,
which attributed to you other plans than those which a campaign
suggests. My mind is now easy on this score, and I pray you forgive
me if my congratulations are _mal a propos_."

After some hints for my future management, and a promise of some letters to
his friends at headquarters, he concluded:--

"As this climate does not seem to suit my daughter, I have
applied for a change, and am in daily hope of obtaining it. Before
going, however, I must beg your acceptance of the charger which my
groom will deliver to your servant with this. I was so struck with
his figure and action that I purchased him before leaving England
without well knowing why or wherefore. Pray let him see some
service under your auspices, which he is most unlikely to do under
mine. He has plenty of bone to be a weight carrier, and they tell
me also that he has speed enough for anything."

Mike's voice in the lawn beneath interrupted my reading farther, and on
looking out, I perceived him and Sir George Dashwood's servant standing
beside a large and striking-looking horse, which they were both examining
with all the critical accuracy of adepts.

"Arrah, isn't he a darling, a real beauty, every inch of him?"

"That 'ere splint don't signify nothing; he aren't the worse of it," said
the English groom.

"Of coorse it doesn't," replied Mike. "What a fore-hand, and the legs,
clean as a whip!"

"There's the best of him, though," interrupted the other, patting the
strong hind-quarters with his hand. "There's the stuff to push him along
through heavy ground and carry him over timber."

"Or a stone wall," said Mike, thinking of Galway.

My own impatience to survey my present had now brought me into the
conclave, and before many minutes were over I had him saddled, and was
cantering around the lawn with a spirit and energy I had not felt for
months long. Some small fences lay before me, and over these he carried me
with all the ease and freedom of a trained hunter. My courage mounted with
the excitement, and I looked eagerly around for some more bold and dashing
leap.

"You may take him over the avenue gate," said the English groom, divining
with a jockey's readiness what I looked for; "he'll do it, never fear him."

Strange as my equipment was, with an undress jacket flying loosely open,
and a bare head, away I went. The gate which the gr