mous day at Broughton Spinnies, and
late on that night Lord Chiltern predicted to his wife that another
episode was about to occur in the life of their friend.

"What do you think Spooner has just asked me?"

"Permission to fight the Duke, or Mr. Palliser?"

"No,--it's nothing about the hunting. He wants to know if you'd mind
his staying here three or four days longer."

"What a very odd request!"

"It is odd, because he was to have gone to-morrow. I suppose there's
no objection."

"Of course not if you like to have him."

"I don't like it a bit," said Lord Chiltern; "but I couldn't turn him
out. And I know what it means."

"What does it mean?"

"You haven't observed anything?"

"I have observed nothing in Mr. Spooner, except an awe-struck horror
at the trapping of a fox."

"He's going to propose to Adelaide Palliser."

"Oswald! You are not in earnest."

"I believe he is. He would have told me if he thought I could give
him the slightest encouragement. You can't very well turn him out
now."

"He'll get an answer that he won't like if he does," said Lady
Chiltern.

Miss Palliser had ridden well on that day, and so had Gerard Maule.
That Mr. Spooner should ride well to hounds was quite a matter of
course. It was the business of his life to do so, and he did it with
great judgment. He hated Maule's style of riding, considering it to
be flashy, injurious to hunting, and unsportsmanlike; and now he had
come to hate the man. He had, of course, perceived how close were the
attentions paid by Mr. Maule to Miss Palliser, and he thought that
he perceived that Miss Palliser did not accept them with thorough
satisfaction. On his way back to Harrington Hall he made some
inquiries, and was taught to believe that Mr. Maule was not a man
of very high standing in the world. Mr. Spooner himself had a very
pretty property of his own,--which was all his own. There was no
doubt about his furniture, or about the roof at Spoon Hall. He was
Spooner of Spoon Hall, and had been High Sheriff for his county. He
was not so young as he once had been;--but he was still a young man,
only just turned forty, and was his own master in everything. He
could read, and he always looked at the country newspaper; but a book
was a thing that he couldn't bear to handle. He didn't think he had
ever seen a girl sit a horse better than Adelaide Palliser sat hers,
and a girl who rode as she did would probably like a man addicted to
hunting. Mr.