e which a groom stood
watching, evidently with some suspense, for their approach. At the first
sight of the animal and its rider, he hastened forward, and, seizing the
bridle, assisted his master to dismount. Once on the ground, the young
man satisfied his spleen by hitting the horse several vicious cuts with
his whip. Then he informed the servant that it was his intention to walk
home, and, with an ominous scowl, watched the "rushing beast" led from
his sight. No one, except himself, was permitted to occupy that saddle.

The house which he now entered had been the town mansion for three
generations of the Hampshires, but, despised by its then owner, whose
young duchess wanted an Italian villa on Piccadilly, or a French chateau
in Park Lane, the lease had been sold to a syndicate of rising
politicians who formed a small organisation known, in those days, as the
Mirafloreans.

"The little order," we read in the Hon. Hercy Berenville's Memoirs, a
malicious work printed for private circulation only--"the little order
first came into notice under the name of the 'Bond of Association,' a
High Church society founded by my brother, Lord Reckage. He formed his
executive committee, however, on timorous and unexpected lines. He had
tried to please the spiteful rather than the loyal. The loyal, he urged,
were always forbearing, but the spiteful needed every attention. He
disappointed alike the warmest and the most selfish among his
supporters. True to his policy, he made desperate attempts to win over
some vindictive men from among the Radicals, and, finally, in a fit of
nervousness, declared, after five months of fruitful folly, his
determination to reorganise the whole league on a strictly non-sectarian
basis. He described himself as a moral philosopher. Once more he became
a figure of interest, again he raised the standard, again he attracted a
small company of enthusiasts, again it was expected that God's enemies
would be scattered. He invited his former secretary, a Roman Catholic,
to join the new society, but he made it clear that Orange, a man of real
distinction, was in no sense a prominent member. The precise dogmata of
Mirafloreanism--a nickname given, I believe, in ironic sympathy by Mr.
Disraeli--were undefined, but the term gradually became associated with
those ideals of conduct, government, and Art which poets imagine, heroes
realise, and the ignorant destroy. Men of all, sundry, and opposing
beliefs presumed to it