mere Newmarket dandy to have entertained for a moment the
supposition that anyone but May Dacre should be the Queen of the St.
Leger?'

'I have heard something of this before,' said Sir Tichborne, 'but I did
not believe it. A young friend of mine consulted me upon the subject.
"Would you advise me," said he, "to settle?" "Why," said I, "if you
can prove any bubble, my opinion is, don't; but if you cannot prove
anything, my opinion is, do."'

'Very just! very true!' were murmured by many in the neighbourhood of
the oracle; by no one with more personal sincerity than Lady Tichborne
herself.

'I will write to my young friend,' continued the Baronet.

'Oh, no!' said Miss Dacre. 'His Grace's candour must not be abused. I
have no idea of being robbed of my well-earned honours. Sir Tichborne,
private conversation must be respected, and the sanctity of domestic
life must not be profaned. If the tactics of Doncaster are no longer to
be fair war, why, half the families in the Riding will be ruined!'

'Still,'--said Sir Tichborne.

But Mr. Dacre, like a deity in a Trojan battle, interposed, and asked
his opinion of a keeper.

'I hope you are a sportsman,' said Miss Dacre to the Duke, 'for this is
the palace of Nimrod!'

'I have hunted; it was not very disagreeable. I sometimes shoot; it is
not very stupid.'

'Then, in fact, I perceive that you are a heretic. Lord Faulconcourt,
his Grace is moralising on the barbarity of the chase.'

'Then he has never had the pleasure of hunting in company with Miss
Dacre.'

'Do you indeed follow the hounds?' asked the Duke.

'Sometimes do worse, ride over them; but Lord Faulconcourt is fast
emancipating me from the trammels of my frippery foreign education,
and I have no doubt that, in another season, I shall fling off quite in
style.'

'You remember Mr. Annesley?' asked the Duke.

'It is difficult to forget him. He always seemed to me to think that the
world was made on purpose for him to have the pleasure of "cutting" it.'

'Yet he was your admirer!'

'Yes, and once paid me a compliment. He told me it was the only one that
he had ever uttered.'

'Oh, Charley, Charley! this is excellent. We shall have a tale when we
meet. What was the compliment?'

'It would be affectation in me to pretend that I have forgotten it.
Nevertheless, you must excuse me.'

'Pray, pray let me have it!'

'Perhaps you will not like it?'

'Now, I must hear it.'

'Well then, he said that tal