what horse?" asked Mr. Will.

"What horse? my horse!" says Mr. Harry, curtly.

"Protest I don't understand you," says Will.

"The brown horse for which I played you, and which I won of you the
night before you rode away upon it," says Mr. Warrington, sternly. "You
remember the horse, Mr. Esmond."

"Mr. Warrington, I perfectly well remember playing you for a horse,
which my servant handed over to you on the day of your departure."

"The chaplain was present at our play. Mr. Sampson, will you be umpire
between us?" Mr. Warrington said, with much gentleness.

"I am bound to decide that Mr. Warrington played for the brown horse,"
says Mr. Sampson.

"Well, he got the other one," said sulky Mr. Will, with a grin.

"And sold it for thirty shillings!" said Mr. Warrington, always
preserving his calm tone.

Will was waggish. "Thirty shillings? and a devilish good price, too, for
the broken-kneed old rip. Ha, ha!"

"Not a word more. 'Tis only a question about a bet, my dear Lady Maria.
Shall I serve you some more chicken?" Nothing could be more studiously
courteous and gay than Mr. Warrington was, so long as the lady remained
in the room. When she rose to go, Harry followed her to the door, and
closed it upon her with the most courtly bow of farewell. He stood at
the closed door for a moment, and then he bade the servants retire. When
those menials were gone, Mr. Warrington locked the heavy door before
them, and pocketed the key.

As it clicked in the lock, Mr. Will, who had been sitting over his
punch, looking now and then askance at his cousin, asked, with one
of the oaths which commonly garnished his conversation, what the--Mr.
Warrington meant by that?

"I guess there's going to be a quarrel," said Mr. Warrington, blandly,
"and there is no use in having these fellows look on at rows between
their betters."

"Who is going to quarrel here, I should like to know?" asked Will,
looking very pale, and grasping a knife.

"Mr. Sampson, you were present when I played Mr. Will fifty guineas
against his brown horse?"

"Against his horse!" bawls out Mr. Will.

"I am not such a something fool as you take me for," says Mr.
Warrington, "although I do come from Virginia!" And he repeated his
question: "Mr. Sampson, you were here when I played the Honourable
William Esmond, Esquire, fifty guineas against his brown horse?"

"I must own it, sir," says the chaplain, with a deprecatory look towards
his lord's brother.

"I