re passing at a good speed through a varying country--now a
thicket of hazel, now great patches of furze upon open common, and anon
well-kept farm-hedges, and clumps of pine, the remnants of ancient
forest, when, halfway through a lane so narrow that the rector felt
every yard toward the other end a gain, his horses started, threw up
their heads, and looked for a moment wild as youth. Just in front of
them, in the air, over a high hedge, scarce touching the topmost twigs
with his hoofs, appeared a great red horse. Down he came into the road,
bringing with him a rather tall, certainly handsome, and even at first
sight, attractive rider. A dark brown mustache upon a somewhat smooth
sunburned face, and a stern settling of the strong yet delicately
finished features gave him a military look; but the sparkle of his blue
eyes contradicted his otherwise cold expression. He drew up close to the
hedge to make room for the carriage, but as he neared him Mr. Bevis
slackened his speed, and during the following talk they were moving
gently along with just room for the rider to keep clear of the off fore
wheel.

"Heigh, Faber," said the clergyman, "you'll break your neck some day!
You should think of your patients, man. That wasn't a jump for any man
in his senses to take."

"It is but fair to give my patients a chance now and then," returned the
surgeon, who never met the rector but there was a merry passage between
them.

"Upon my word," said Mr. Bevis, "when you came over the hedge there, I
took you for Death in the Revelations, that had tired out his own and
changed horses with t'other one."

As he spoke, he glanced back with a queer look, for he found himself
guilty of a little irreverence, and his conscience sat behind him in the
person of his wife. But that conscience was a very easy one, being
almost as incapable of seeing a joke as of refusing a request.

"--How many have you bagged this week?" concluded the rector.

"I haven't counted up yet," answered the surgeon. "--_You_'ve got one
behind, I see," he added, signing with his whip over his shoulder.

"Poor old thing!" said the rector, as if excusing himself, "she's got a
heavy basket, and we all need a lift sometimes--eh, doctor?--into the
world and out again, at all events."

There was more of the reflective in this utterance than the parson was
in the habit of displaying; but he liked the doctor, and, although as
well as every one else he knew him to be no frien